Sunday, November 20

6 Months



SERIOUSLY?!? 6 MONTHS! Where is the time flying to? Jack is growing up before our eyes and changing so much!

We no longer have a newborn (well, technically we haven’t for a while). I realized how much times have changed when I vacuumed today and Jack was in his jumper and got very scared and started crying. When he was a newborn I would pull out the vacuum to make him STOP crying!

I feel like I get to know him more and more each day and love him more each day. Most of the time I can tell from his cry if he’s hungry, tired, bored, or just wants to be held.

His huge smile each morning when I go to wake him up makes my day (and makes it hard for me to take him to daycare). Tyler and I haven’t been around other babies much, but he is such a happy baby. Not sure if they’re all like this, but of course I think he’s special.

He is such a flexible baby and can adapt to his surroundings and new people or whatever adventure we take him on.


SIZE:
You had your 6 month check and weight 16lbs. Your height is 25”. Since you a short you are still able to fit into some of your 3 month clothes, including your footed pj’s but you are about to be too tall for them. Mainly you are wearing 6 month clothes and we just moved you into size 2 diapers.


SLEEP:
I thought we were about to turn a corner with sleeping, but at this moment you are still waking up once a night around 4-5 to eat. You slept through the night a few times within a two week period and I thought maybe it was a trend, but lately you have gone back to waking up once a night. Naptime is the same as previous months. You normally will take about 2 naps a day with one of those being a long nap 1.5-2 hours and then a cat nap here and there. On a normal day you go to bed around 7:30pm and wake up for the day at 7am.


ACTIVITIES:
Sitting up, reaching for toys, picking up a toy and swinging your arm back and forth, playing in your jumper, sitting in bumbo, & being on your tummy (although you don’t always like it you have gotten more used to it and stayed entertained for a while). During any time that you are awake we are trying to keep you off your back so pretty much anything where you are sitting up.



FOOD:
You eat 5-6 times per day. I feed you in the morning (sometimes twice if you’ve woken up for a 4am feeding), you have 2-3 bottles at the nursery, you eat solids when we get home, and you have 1 bottle of formula before bed or we wake you up for it if you fell asleep early. You are still on momma’s milk, except the one formula bottle at night. You are eating rice cereal once a day and since your 6 month doctor’s appointment fell before your actual 6 month birthday you have now tried bananas, carrots, & pears. They all seem the same to you and you eat them all up. Sometimes when I give you a bit of a new food to try and then move onto rice cereal you make a weird face at the cereal.


NEW THINGS:
The most notable new thing is that you are sitting up all by yourself. This literally happened the day before you turned 6 months. You have excellent balance and are sitting all on your own. We are so excited, but it makes you seem so big! You sit up and play with all your toys and reach for different things, too. You have pretty much skipped over the rolling milestone. You have rolled from your tummy to your back (mainly I think because you HATE being on your tummy), but still have not rolled from your back to tummy. The doctor said you are looking good and some kids just don’t roll over now-a-days because they can see everything they want and don’t want to go anywhere. And she added that some thicker babies might not and you just might be one of those.

You love grabbing your feet when you are sitting in your bumbo or when I am changing you.
You love to grab everything. This includes mom’s hair (not so fun), but when you meet new people you reach out to feel their face and just touch it.

You are pulling everything to your mouth. I have teething toys for you, but so far your favorite thing to chew on is your pacifier. You will be sucking on it and then pull it out of your mouth and start to chew on the sides, then put it back in your mouth if you want to suck on it again.

You have lots of toys, but two are currently your favorites. You love the snail that rolls & lights up & has music when you move it. You play with it on your tummy or sitting up. You also love to shake anything that rattles, especially your ball with a rattle inside. You are able to easily grip the cage of the ball and just slam it back and forth (sometimes into your face and we try to calm you down when that happens). You also love sitting in your activity jumper and moving around and playing with all the toys on it.

You are so aware of your surroundings and are constantly studying them.  It is getting challenging to feed you because if dad is in the room, or if the tv is on, or if I'm playing on my phone you turn your head and want be in on the action.  You have also taken a new interest to Jake and watch him often.

You had your first Halloween and mom and dad dressed you up as a lion. You went to your first pumpkin patch. You attended your first wedding.

You made your first visit to the hospital and were put under anesethia when Dr. Wang inject steroids into the cavernous hemangioma above your left eye.

Just in the last few days you have really started to show me when you are unhappy by arching your back. It’s almost like you are about to through a tantrum, but if you decide you don’t want to be sitting in the bumbo, laying on your back, or be held a certain way you arch your back as hard as possible.

You have also started blowing raspberries with your mouth at random times which makes us laugh. It’s a funny buzzing noise.

Tuesday, November 15

A Frio River Wedding

Tyler's cousin, Kelly (boy), got married to Kelley (girl) this past weekend along the Frio River.  The weather was amazing and the scenery reminded me that it is in fact fall!  We were able to spend some good time with all the aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and great grandma.  Jack officially attended his first wedding and behaved pretty good! He was definitely spoiled by all the loving all weekend.
 Watching football with Great Uncle Burt
 Hanging out at breakfast
I'm not quite ready for him to stand just yet

 
 Playing around with dad

 We loved this truck

With Jack's future wedding pastor

 The Francis family

 Family of 3

 The Bloomer clan

 The cousins & spouses/gf/bf

 Happy baby

 Loving on Great Grandma

 Again...we loved the truck

 The reception was at a great outdoor venue.  Since we've lived in San Antonio Tyler has insisted that we will have these mariachi people in our backyard at some time in our life.  I knew he would be excited right when I saw them...
 So we took a picture with them.

 Family dance before it was baby Jack's bedtime

And one last picture with the truck!

We had an awesome weekend celebrating Kelly & Kelley! 

The whole weekend fit their personalities perfectly! 

Sunday, November 13

5 Years

On 11-11-11 Tyler and I celebrated being married for 5 years!  I love looking back at our wedding pictures & video each year.  It was such a fun celebration of the beginning of our lives together that we will never forget.  


The wedding seems like yesterday, yet seems so long ago at the same time.  We are constantly working on our marriage and communication and sometimes get caught up in our busy, busy lives.  It is nice to know each year when our anniversary rolls around that we are able to reflect on the past year and how our lives have changed.  We are so blessed to have this little munchkin added to our family of two.  


Tyler is my best friend and I love him more and more each day.  He spends every day working towards his future so he can provide for us in the future, but it is a long road for him.  His life is a little upside down right now between doctor's appointments, travel for interviews, school, Bell's Palsy, being a dad & husband, and trying to figure out when he can deer hunt. 

I love you so much!  Happy anniversary and cheers to what the many future years hold!

Monday, November 7

One tiny hospital gown...


You might have noticed in Jack's recent pictures that the bump (aka cavernous hemangioma) above his left eye is more purple and blue.  Jack had seen a pediatric plastic surgeon that recommended we inject it with steroids to keep it from growing any larger and affecting his vision.  It had already started to push his eyelid down where it was covering part of his pupil at times.  So a few weeks ago Tyler and I both took the day off and headed into Methodist Children's at 5am for Jack's pre-op and injection.  They had to put him under for the injection, which was pretty scary.  It was luckily a quick procedure and we were away from him for about 30 minutes start to finish.  It was heartbreaking to see him when they took us to post op and he was coming out from the anesethia.  Needless to say he was pretty fussy the whole day but he slept and ate alot and after a couple of days he was back to normal.

 In pre-op playing away.  Could there be a smaller hospital gown?

Sunday, November 6

A Zilker Park Kinda Day

Last Saturday was one of the first days Tyler and I didn't have anything to do.  No weddings, no studying, no showers, no traveling.  We ate lunch in  San Antonio and were brainstorming what to do the rest of the day and decided to head to Austin and to Zilker park for a few hours.

Taylor and Jeff moved to a new apartment in Austin closer to downtown so we were able to see it for the first time and use it as home base to feed Jack when we got into town and before we headed back to SA.  I'm pretty sure this was the first time Jack had seen real, beautiful grass.  San Antonio is more dirt now-a-days thanks to the drought. 










After the park we made our own little food tour around and Austin and ate at 3 different trailer spots.  We love visiting Austin and it is great how close we are.  Each time we're there I tell Jack that's where he'll be going to college :)  It was hard to do this trip with 3 Aggies around, though! 

Monday, October 31

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Tyler and I originally picked out one costume for Jack for Halloween.

 Then I started going through his closet and realized he had lots of
awesome options he had received as gifts.

So he got to wear all of them!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

From our 'lil LION.....




and big TURTLE...


and DR. JACK...



and 'lil PUMPKIN....




and SURGEON...

(dad was wearing his scrubs when he got home from work so I insisted on a photo op)


And this is what he was doing
when the first trick or treater arrived....

We wore him out...
Jack had a great first Halloween!
Love him so much!