6 Months & a few days late

Happy 6 month birthday to my little monkey!

We had a rough 6 month birthday week, with lots of low fevers, plenty of drool and a sleepy boy. He's really been pretty happy considering all the above, but finally today I can feel his two little teeth on the bottom trying to poke up. Hopefully they'll push on through quickly.

What are you doing here teddy?!

The past 6 months have been wonderful! Tiring and yet wonderful. We have fallen into a very good routine. We are home-bodies to begin with, but don't really try to go out to eat or anything with N lately because he goes to sleep at 6:30 and its just not worth trying to console him when he thinks he should be asleep. Thankfully N's wonderful grandmothers are eager to keep him so Ben and I can get out once in awhile.



Here are some stats for our little boy:

We think he is around 17 pounds (I got on the scale with him the other day). We have our official 6 month appointment on Monday, so I'll update then.

He still sleeps at least 12 hours at night and takes a 2 hour nap in the morning and a 1 hour nap in the afternoon. Baby LOVES some sleep.

He loves his jumper! And I love watching babies in those things... hilarious!


We got in the habit of rocking him over Christmas break since we were all over the place, but had to do some boot camp last week to get him back into putting himself to sleep. One night of crying and he remembered. I think some times he prefers to just be laid down so he can get to sleep already. (If I haven't pushed The Sleep Solution book enough and you want to do some sleep training, go get it! We've read and re-read it many times to remind us what to do.)

He eats and LOVES food. Peas and sweet potatoes are probably his favorite, but he still acts like a bird no matter what you feed him with his mouth wide open after each bite. Its hysterical! He's had a ton of different foods, and I tried rice cereal with him one day last week and it was awful. He ate it but was so gassy and cried the whole day. We will not be trying that again. The doctor told us not to mess with it since he is sleeping through the night and wasn't spitting up much, but I got a wild hair after he started spitting up more than usual. We decided we'd rather have a laundry problem than a miserable baby.

There's his bird face:

Warning: breastfeeding info ahead:::


On a similar note I'm still pumping and can hardly believe it that we made it to 6 months. Prior to Christmas I really thought I would keep doing it until 12 months as long as it lasted, but over Christmas break my milk took a nose dive. It was like one side just wouldn't let it out and in turn I started making less. I had to add another pumping time to catch back up and have stressed over it for the past 3 weeks. Today, I think I've made up my mind to ween N towards formula (glug....). I finally got to the point where I am starting to dread pumping. I even tried to nurse him again over the break in hopes he'd learned to nurse again and help fix the milk not coming out issue, but after bottles for 4 months, there was no such luck. I'm beating myself up over it, but I don't want to dread pumping and spending 3 hours a day hooked to this machine is getting old. I want to just spend it with N. I want to enjoy him and be with him rather than having to put him in the pack n' play and watch him from across the room.

Anyways,

A few other news:

We are still army crawling around. He can't quite get that belly off the ground. Also we are working on sitting up. He does the funniest thing when he gets his legs under him, but then doesn't know what to do next. Look at all those rolls!

Happy 6 months precious! We are so thankful to have you in our lives!

First Christmas

This was a wonderful first Christmas with N. I tried to resist saying I'm shocked its already over, but seriously, I want to go back and do it all over again and slow it down. Pay no attention to the orange nose we've developed.... baby loves some sweet potatoes!

Christmas Eve - So dang cute!


He LOVED the bows, but was very unimpressed with how they tasted.

On his lamb pillow pet :)

This is how we unwrap presents!

B's mom came over to our house Christmas Eve and went to our church service with us. Then we woke up and did Christmas at our house.

Taking a break for some food.

Our Christmas outfit. (That hand is only out of his mouth if the paci makes it in, everyone says its because he's teething, but he's really been like that since day 1, he loves his hand.)

After breakfast we packed up and headed to my parents for Christmas round 2 and dinner. We left Monday morning at 5am for North Carolina so B's extended family could meet the baby.

B and his grandmother. I was very impressed with how N handled himself in the car! He was his typical self, took naps, played and hung out. He probably handled the 8.5 hour drive better than me!

Everyone loved meeting N! We are enjoying a 4 day weekend at home now, recovering from a week of non-stop. N is working on his crawl. I'm sure in a few days I'll have to share a video. :)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Baptism

N was baptized a couple of weeks ago on Dec. 18. He held it together great and we were very thankful so we could actually listen to our pastors and consent to the questions they were asking us. :) We have such a wonderful church family and know that they will love N as long as we are there. They will help us raise him in the Lord and teach him to be a strong christian man. My parents and Ben's mom came also. (We scheduled it this day in hopes that my little brother would be in from Texas, but his flight came in the day after the baptism.)

Praise the Lord for this precious child he has blessed us with!


He did pass out just minutes after his part was over, B was not thrilled I wanted to still take pictures with a sleeping baby in his arms. :) Ha! Pictures are important!

5 Months Old!

My sweet little boy is 5 months old (I'm a few days late).



In the past month he has started eating baby food (mostly orange/yellow veggies), holding his own bottle, finding and putting his pacifier in his mouth and semi-scooting (as in actually tucking his legs under him and trying to push his head along the ground...).

He is still doing great with sleeping (6:30-6:30), waking up every few nights to find his paci, but I don't have to go in there often, if I can stand to wait it out he usually finds it and gets it back in his own mouth.

(Looks so sweet here, like he's consoling his little bear :)

He is very happy! Takes one 2-hour nap a day and a few power naps. He loves the johnny jump-up finally! Well, I should say, likes... not loves. But his feet at least touch the ground and he can actually bounce a bit.

The funniest story from the past month was when B was helping me make some squash baby food (that stuff is expensive!). I had N in the kitchen feeding him while B got out the frozen squash and the magic bullet. I'm telling him that he just use the bullet to puree the food and add water until he gets the consistency of the jar stuff. I hear the bullet starting and then B has a confused look on his face and says to me, "I think we are supposed to let this thaw out before blending it..."

HA! THAW?! I said, I'm pretty sure you are supposed to COOK it, we aren't starting him on a raw food diet yet! Glad I was around or poor baby's tummy would be very upset the next time we fed him... hah!

:)

Silly boys...

Look at that fat belly!

Merry Christmas!

N's nanny asked if I was going to take him to see Santa this year and my answer was, ....probably not. I just couldn't see standing in line for hours to give my child to a strange man, have N scream and pay $25 for the picture...

So she asked if she could. Of course! She could take him during the day so the line wouldn't be as long too.

She came back and this was the shot they got. SO CUTE! I am so thankful for her and how much she loves him.

(If I look at Santa too much I get a little creeped out about it!)

As several people on facebook noticed, this picture is MUCH better than our last holiday picture...

4 Months Old!

Noah is 4 months old!

He weighs 13lbs 9 ounces (30th percentile), is 25.75 inches long (75th percentile) and his head is 16 inches (50th percentile).
He sleeps from 6:30pm-6:30am.
He eats 4 bottles of breastmilk a day, 28 ounces currently.
He can pick toys up and put them in his mouth, but we are still working on getting the paci in there. He LOVES his paci still.
He loves his bath. Sometimes we spend a long long time in there at night because its the only thing that can hold him together until his last bottle and bedtime.
He smiles all the time and laughs several times a day, but isn't cackling yet.
He sleeps on his tummy (no other way around that one).
He loves his feet and hands. The feet haven't made it in his mouth yet, but if there isn't a paci in there, his fingers are. I've tried to notice which fingers he is sucking on the most and it seems to be his index, middle and ring fingers on his right hand... all at the same time. :)
His hair is finally coming back! WOO!

Hello bear!

His little feet are always in this position, turned towards each other and pressed against one another. Its too funny.

We are loving life and enjoying every minute of it. We have two great friends who are coming to visit us this weekend and meet N. Before we know it Thanksgiving will be here and N will get to meet his two great-grandmothers!

Sleep is not just for the weak

16 weeks

We have a new and wonderful schedule in our household! (This post is mostly for documentation so when baby # 2 may come around and I am sleep deprived and wondering when I will ever get sleep again I can look back and remember how things went with N.)

We dropped another feeding on Saturday and are down to just 4 feedings a day - 7 ounces each. Which put him right on track to start trying the actual 12 hours by 12 weeks schedule (The Sleep Solution book). So Saturday night I laid N down at 6:30 and sure enough he slept until 6:30 the next morning! I had to go in there once and put his paci in around 4am. Well, I was wary the next night because this was giving me a whole new morning routine IF it worked. I would pump first, get ready and then wake him up and feed him before we left for work. Well he did it again! 12 hours!

So today we are officially on our fifth night of our new schedule and things are looking promising (knock on wood!). I was worried about getting into the 12 hour schedule because I had been waking him up at 5 and I did not want him going to sleep at 5 in the afternoon. I would never see him! 6:30 is as late as I can push it and still get to work on time. He just started acting so tired in the evenings waiting on that last feeding, so I thought maybe he was ready for this new schedule (even though apparently some babies are ready at 12 weeks). Our book would read 12 hours by 16 weeks :) (The book did help us get to 8 or so hours by 9 weeks too - very helpful.)

Our amazing sitter (nanny?) who watches N during the day drops him off to me at 3:15, so I feel like I have a good chunk of time with him in the evenings and then in the mornings he talks the WHOLE way to work, where he used to just sleep. It cracks me up!

I would definitely recommend the Baby Sleep Solution book, one of the very few I read because it was so small.

This picture reminds me of how much he likes to hear himself yell. :)

3 months!

Happy 3 month birthday to my sweet boy!


What we've been up to in the past lately:

N has been rolling over both directions for 2 weeks now!

He has been mostly sleeping through the night since 9 weeks. We had a momentary hiccup for a few days where he was waking up and wanting his paci or I would need to rock him, but we are back to sleeping from approximately 8pm to 5am (I usually wake him up to feed him at 5am, because I have to pump and it makes my morning routine before work go much smoother when we do it at the same time.)

He sleeps in his crib at night no problem, but we are still trying to figure out the napping thing. He naps in his nap-nanny in the morning while I get ready, but he does NOT like to nap in his crib.

Several times this week when I've gone to get him up in the mornings he is on his tummy! The doctor told us we have to flip him back over on his back when we find him asleep on his stomach, this wouldn't be so terrible except we have a video monitor so I see him on his tummy all the time! Which means I have to get up and flip him a couple times a night. My mom said to quit and just lay him on his back and let him be, and really if I didn't have the video monitor, I'd have no clue he was on his tummy. BUT.... I do know and I'm still too nervous to leave him there since the doctor told us to flip him over.


N can hold his paci and had one attempt to actually put it in his mouth, but flailing ensued and he ended up frustrated. It was still rather cute.

He found his feet! He lifts his little legs up in the air all the time and this week reached out and grabbed them. Its so funny how the tiniest accomplishments make my day.


He is eating 6 times a day still, 30 ounces of breast milk (Hooray! This was one of my main goals to make it to!). (The hiccup in our night sleeping was when I tried to push him to 5 feedings a day because he was acting so tired at night, but that didn't work for us just yet.)

We started at a new 'day care' 2 weeks ago. He was at an in-home daycare with 5 other babies, but we've moved him to a one-on-one nanny-type situation with a lady who picks him up from my school and drops him off in the afternoons. She LOVES him and it could not be any better for us right now! I am very thankful to have found this wonderful woman to watch him.

He smiles ALL the time! He has laughed out loud a few times. I can't wait for him to laugh all the time :)
He loves his baths - this is an understatement.
Loves to suck on his hands.
Prefers to never have his clothes changed. :)
Loves to lay on a blanket or the floor play mat and kick and talk.
Has discovered his voice and loves to yell!
Weighs almost 13 pounds.

We are so thankful for this sweet blessing. Ben is doing great. It is so sweet to see him as a dad. He is a wonderful father. I on the other hand am struggling. I am UNBELIEVABLY tired, even with N sleeping through the night. I am thinking maybe my iron levels are off or something because it feels like mono-tired. (I'd say pregnancy tired, but then everyone would ask if I was pregnant again, which I am not. :) Other than that, things are great, work is crazy busy, but it is falling into place with everything else.

7 weeks

Noah,
Today you are 7 whole weeks old! You are precious and we think you are pretty much the best thing in the world. I pray for you every day, sometimes many many times a day and a lot of times the same prayers. I pray that God will protect you (A LOT), keep you healthy and help me to teach you his ways. I pray you will know and love the Lord and your life will be of service to him. He blessed us with you 7 weeks ago and we are so very thankful!



The past 7 weeks
- have flown by!
- you learned to smile. (you laughed a few times in your sleep, but it doesn't count yet.)
- I think you can now see me across the room.
- you can follow me with your eyes as I move away from you.
- you are eating 4 - 6 ounces of breastmilk every 3 to 4 hours! I think you are a piglet :)
- you are typically sleeping 5 - 6 hours in a row at night and surprised us with 8.5 last night!
- you LOVE your baths. Unfortunately the whole process only takes about 5 minutes and I try to stretch it to 10, but there just isn't that much to do in there yet.
- you hate being swaddled and want to be FREEE! :)
- you don't mind tummy time because you think that I'm actually letting you go to sleep on your tummy...
- you are sleeping in a swing because you don't like being swaddled and you can't stop wiggling around when we put you in your crib.
- you love your paci, and I mean LOVE!
- you have no idea that Logan and Sierra try to sneak licks to your feet every hour or so.
- you can hold on to things like your paci or a toy and wave it around, but I don't think you know you are doing it yet, lol.

We are definitely still figuring things out, but hopefully we'll all get better and better about that as you start to fall into a routine (which I think we are in the slow process of!).

I am going to miss you terribly when I go back to work next week, but I know that you have gotten bigger and stronger than you were a few weeks ago. I have loved every second of being home with you and learning who you are.

Favorite Baby Items & Great Tips

I've been thinking of helpful things to tell some of my friends who are expecting lately and I decided to post them in a blog in case it helps anyone else out there. I was VERY thankful when my friend Johnna would send me emails about what she had learned along the way with her almost two-year-old (and many of these things may be from her, my friend Jessica or other friends who thankfully lent us lots of baby items or advice!).

Some of my most favorite must-have baby items & advice:

Baby Jogger City Mini - My #1 favorite item! I stressed about the stroller for a long time. This was my original choice after reading tons of reviews and websites. I wanted something light weight and easy to fold (you HAVE to watch the thing fold!) that turned and could be pushed with one hand easily. City mini does all those things. I went back to Buy Buy Baby at least 10 times and played with all their strollers just to be sure. The one aspect I didn't love about the City Mini was the storage basket underneath, its not huge. I was worried about it. After stressing over getting a larger stroller or one that doesn't fold as easy, I ended up going with the City Mini and am so glad I did. We of course got the infant car seat adapter, which works perfectly with our Peg Perego and a few other add-ons like a drink holder, a mommy-hook and the cooler (you know for all those picnics I go on).

- Dr. Brown's (or probably any kind) Microwave Sterilizer - this is so easy to throw everything in and stick it in the microwave. I don't know about you, but I don't run my dishwasher everyday and the thought of hand-washing pump, bottle, pacifiers, etc everyday makes me want to step on a nail. I just rinse things as we use them and when I have enough to fill up the basket throw them in. Its done in 6 minutes! (Which is just enough time for me to not forget that I need to get them out and pack things up for the next day, will come in handy when getting ready for work in the morning... if I had to get them out of the dishwasher I'd never remember all my items!)

Two tiered drying racks - definitely cleared up some counter space!

Aden & Anais Burpy Bibs (and pretty much everything they make)- these things are so fabulous, they actually snap so you can use them as a bib, but are big and super absorbent for burp cloths too!

- Mabel's Labels - LOVE these. My friend Jessica had these on the Dr. Brown's bottles she gave us and I ordered my own set for Noah. They are dishwasher AND microwave safe! We just received ours today and I'm very happy with them and the peace of mind that Noah won't be given any other baby's bottles at the sitters :). (Shipping takes a little while, so don't expect them to be in quickly.) I would love other items they have to see how they hold up too - like their clothing labels!

- Cooshee Diaper Changer - Again, thank you Jessica! No more changing sheets! And if you have changed a boy's diaper once or twice, you know their tendency to hose you down. I can't imagine changing a sheet at 3 am... no fun. When we have an accident I just wipe it down with a clorox wipe. Easy peasy. :)

- Baby Elephant Ears - these are great for all those things that baby doesn't quite fit in yet.

- Get a no-touch thermometer BEFORE the baby arrives. Lots of people may want to know his temp those first few days/weeks and its hard to get a wiggly baby's temp in his armpit and I'm not tough enough to stick it anywhere else. (That is the one we have and our doctor uses.)

- Breastfeeding - if pumping hurts, get a different size flange! I am still struggling with this a bit, but just ordered Pumpin' Pals Comfort Pack, so we'll see if these help. I've tried to research a good bit of how things are supposed to fit, but amazingly there aren't many pictures of what things are supposed to look like while pumping (don't worry I won't be doing that sort of review!)

- I have the Medela Pump & Style Advanced that my sister-in-law lent me, it works great. I don't have anything to compare it to, but it does the job and is very easy to cart around. It comes in the little black bag with plenty of room to toss in all your items, including a little cooler it comes with.

- Medela Hands-Free Pumping Bustier - I knew I wanted this straight from the hospital, one time of holding those things while trying to turn the machine on, off or to a different setting and I was done, I don't know how people pump without it!

- How to label breast milk in the fridge? Painter's tape and a sharpie! The tape doesn't leave behind any residue and stays on very well in the fridge. For the freezer I love the Lanisoh storage bags. Easy to label and zip up.

- Johnna told me a very helpful tip - if you are buying a convertible crib, go ahead and buy the converter kit. She found out that her crib was discontinued and couldn't find the kit when it was time to actually convert it.

- Something I wish I had gotten earlier - The Woombie - Noah hates to be swaddled, but didn't mind it when he was tiny. I think had we had this several weeks ago we could have transitioned to this from being swaddled, but still given him some room to wiggle. Currently he doesn't sleep well in his crib because he wakes himself up by smacking himself in the head or knocking his paci out, but he gets VERY angry if he's swaddled. We are using a swing that has a tilt to it because it keeps him snug but he can still move his hands/arms freely. (I think he really wants to be a stomach sleeper because anytime we do 'tummy time' he tucks his arms in and falls asleep! ha!) Another option - Peke Moe. (The Woombie didn't work for us because he still was very mad he couldn't flail his arms around :)

- Join Shutterfly if you haven't already. They have GREAT promotions. I just received a free photobook in the mail from them and got our birth announcements for a very good price and the quality was great! (Also, most of the baby marketing I've received in the mail has had promotion codes on them to use at Shutterfly, $20 off here, 15 free cards here... they all add up! That reminds me, sign up for all the free baby stuff you are offered including all the formula wesbites, they will send LOTS of coupons!)

Another good one - Pampers Gifts to Grow codes - you are using all those diapers and wipes, why not make them worth something?

Okay... is that enough information for one post? What is your can't-live-without baby item or advice? We'd all love to hear!

Baby Handprints... seriously?!

Everyone has seen those precious baby hand prints stamped on canvases, mugs, t-shirts... right? They look like that above.

Well, my question is, who is able to capture this and more importantly HOW?!

Ben so lovingly bought me a baby book for our anniversary (4 year was fabric and the book has a fabric cover, pretty creative!). In this book are two pages that have been haunting me for over 6 weeks now: Handprints and Footprints.

I definitely want to capture these precious hands and feet and remember how tiny they are, but I haven't exactly known how. I also knew I wanted them on the wall in some way too.



So, this week I made a trip to Michael's and bought my supplies: 4 canvases, blue, green, brown, orange and non-toxic white crayola paint for his hands and feet.

I carefully painted each canvas and gave them ample time to dry...

Then I waited and waited until Noah fell asleep and was moveable, which I thought would be the best time. You agree right?

Wrong...

This was the best of one of our attempts... Seriously, most of them looked like a smashed blob of paint. And then poor Noah looked like this:



Look carefully and yes, there is paint (non-toxic!) on his face, clothes, arms, hands, bouncer....ugh!

Well, two days, three tries, several repainted canvases, a few tears and one freakout at Ben when he tried to leave me alone with a painted baby later:

We have one, albeit, sloppy hand print.

The thing that worked out pretty well though, was the footprint:

This also took a few attempts, which is why one is lighter than the other and I had to repaint this canvas several times, BUT... we have two feet! And a left and a right one at that!

We still have another attempt to capture that right hand... let's hope its soon enough that its not significantly larger than the left one already on the canvas. I may be a professional when this is all said and done.


And a few pictures from this week:

I love him :)