The Journey Continues

Our Awkward Family Photo

2012-02-21T18:17:00.000-08:00

I've been working on putting together a photo book of Jesse's first year, and as I was looking through some pictures tonight, I stumbled upon this terribly awkward one. James looks really angry, Jesse looks like he's just seen an angel come down from the sky, and I look either so happy or so sad I could cry.

Welcome to our (not so clean) home!

2012-02-21T12:25:00.000-08:00

If you were to step into our home at any point in the day when Jesse is awake, this is what you would find (multiply the number of small objects on the floor by 10):

Yes, you would see that cute little boy named Jesse, but you would also see (perhaps trip over) an array of toys. I am exaggerating (slightly), but some days I feel like I am just constantly picking up toys.

Jesse begins his day by going to his toy bins and methodically throwing as many toys as possible onto the floor. Sometimes he just picks up a whole bin of toys and chunks the entire thing across the room.

Then, he might find one toy he wants to play with for a minute or two before proceeding to do the same with all of our things (he doesn't get very far in that endeavor, though, before one of us stops him).

A term I learned in my high-school chemistry class has been running through my mind a lot these days: entropy. It's a measure of the amount of disorder. This kid creates a high level of entropy, or in other words, a high level of disorder, wherever he goes.

Lucky for me, it really doesn't take very long to put everything back where it belongs. He's a pretty fun kid, too, so that works in his favor as well :)

He's a Walker!

2012-02-15T17:49:00.000-08:00

Jesse has been taking lots of steps in between pieces of furniture, but he would rarely walk to one of us on command until tonight. James got home early today, and Jesse decided he would take off walking. He was standing by the coffee table and was trying to get James' attention (he was at the computer) with a big, huge grin on his face and then he took off walking towards me. From that moment on, he has been walking back and forth between the two of us and even out into the open room. He loves it!

Valentine's Play Date

2012-02-14T18:45:00.000-08:00

Jesse and Alyse had a little play date this morning. I just had to snap some pictures since they were both dressed in their Valentine's attire. Jesse has a long way to go in making impressions on girls. Right now he gets their attention by chasing and rough pats on the head.

Playing quite nicely side-by-side:

This was Jesse getting really excited about the camera that I was holding:

Here they are playing with my phone, which they used this afternoon to call/text numerous people in my address book. The ironic thing was that somehow 3 out of 4 grandparents were contacted in some way, either by text or phone call.

Here is Jesse taking some steps this afternoon:

And playing peek-a-boo with me:

13 Months

2012-02-14T17:56:00.000-08:00

Jesse has changed so much over the past month. He is more and more our little boy and less and less our little baby. Here's what he's been up to over the past month:

Eating three good meals per day, a small snack in the late afternoon, and nursing three times. After dropping two nursing sessions over the past month, he has had an increased appetite for solids and began to eat good dinners. He loves his cow's milk, especially at dinnertime, and is probably drinking about 8 oz. per day. He has continued to show interest in eating veggies (mostly peas, green beans, yellow squash and zucchini). Some new foods are clementines, strawberries, ground beef, salmon, pizza and lasagna. He loves almost any fruit (with the exceptions of blueberries and applesauce), puts away beans like crazy, and also really continues to love cheese, yogurt and turkey (but the turkey must be smoked, not roasted).
Some new words are duck, bath, water, two and beans.
He has a new-found obsession with the garbage truck. It stops under his bedroom window every morning between 7:30 and 8:00 to load all the trash from our building. We usually hear it beeping as it pulls up to the trash room, and so I take Jesse and stand him up in the window so that he can watch the man dump all the trash into the truck. Then we wave bye-bye to it. He loves it! The past two days I have asked Jesse if he wants to see the garbage truck and he gasps and gets this really excited look on his face and starts looking for it.
He has gotten pretty bad about throwing food off of his tray. He looks up immediately to see what kind of reaction he is going to get. When I scold him he just smiles, but sometimes he gets pretty upset when James gets onto him. Keeping less food on his tray usually helps the problem.
He is so close to walking. He stands alone all the time--not on purpose, but because he gets distracted by a toy in his hand and doesn't even realize he's doing it. Just this week he has consistently been taking steps between pieces of furniture. I think he just needs a little more confidence/motivation. Right now the knee walking seems to be serving him just fine (he is able to keep toys in his hands, yet doesn't have to worry about falling).
He is more and more snuggly these days and always snuggles up to me when I sing to him before his naps and at bedtime. Also, over the past few days, I find him randomly laying on the floor on his belly, or with his head resting on the couch, as if he's just taking a short little break.
His favorite toys are my phone and keys. He will literally play with the keys for hours, taking them with him wherever he goes.

Approximate daily routine at one year:

6:30 Wakes up and nurses

8:30 Eats breakfast

9:00 Morning nap

11:30 Lunch

1:30 Nurses/Afternoon Nap

4:00 Snack

5:30 Dinner

6:30 or 7 Nurses/Bedtime

Taking a break from his exhausting life:

How a Jesse Eats Bread

2012-02-06T18:27:00.000-08:00

Jesse recently began refusing the tiny bite-sized pieces of bread I was giving him, so I decided to see if he would be more enthusiastic about eating larger pieces. I wouldn't go as far as saying that he gobbled it up, but he definitely acted more interested in it.

Kisses

2012-02-01T07:36:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago I started doing a "baby swap" with a friend of mine here in the building. She takes Jesse for an hour or so every week so that I can get out and run errands or just have some time to myself, and I do the same with her daughter Alyse, who is a couple months older than Jesse. It has been so nice to have a little time to myself each week and to have the freedom to get out and do something without a baby in tow. I am so grateful for good friends here in our building.

Yesterday morning Alyse came over to play. The two babies have lots of fun "playing" together. Here is some proof. Jesse is being uncharacteristically gentle in this video. His usual way of interacting with Alyse involves lots of rough pats on the back and face. We are working on understanding what "gentle" means.

Pizza Night

2012-01-31T17:37:00.000-08:00

Two people in particular (my Mom and Dad) have been telling me to post more pictures of Jesse, so in order to keep myself out of trouble, here are some more pictures.

We gave Jesse some pizza recently (in my defense it was pretty healthy as far as pizzas go--homemade with a whole wheat crust) and he really loved it. The funny thing is, as I looked over all these pictures, he isn't smiling in a single one. In fact, he looks very scared/upset/angry in them. I promise, he really did like the pizza and he made it very clear when he wanted more. You might notice that there is hardly any pizza to be seen on his tray--that is because he gobbled it up faster than we could put it on there.

In these last two pictures, he was actually pretty upset because he got a taste of pepperoni and this was NOT a pleasant experience for him.

Fun with Food

2012-01-31T17:06:00.000-08:00

Jesse has become quite messy with his food. Here he is eating "tacos" (taco meat, cheddar cheese, avocado, and black beans) tonight. Needless to say, there were quite a few burps to be heard at the end of this meal. And a good bath and lots of scrubbing.

Fun in the Snow

2012-01-21T11:59:00.000-08:00

After an unusually mild start to our winter here in Chicago, it has finally started getting cold and snowy. It snowed all day yesterday, and we woke up to really large flakes this morning. After lunch we went outside to the playground and let Jesse get down and play a little bit in the snow. Much to my surprise, he was actually pretty happy in it. I was expecting him to start screaming after sitting in it for 5 seconds, but he seemed quite intrigued by it. I'm looking forward to this time next year when he'll probably be asking us to take him outside to play in it.

Getting all bundled up is never the fun part of playing in the snow.

Especially when you have to put on so many layers that you can barely sit up (this picture was actually taken last night before we ventured out for dinner, but the same thing happened today and this time he toppled over).

But it's really exciting to see all the white, fluffy stuff.

It sure is cold when you try to eat it (thanks, Daddy, for offering).

Unfortunately, all my layers don't make it very easy to crawl around

But maybe if I get up on my knees I can start moving.

Daddy said that making snow angels would be fun. I beg to differ.

But going down a snowy slide was a blast!

Here's some video footage for the Grandparents. If you listen for it, you might hear Jesse saying "Brrr....Brrr..." at one point.

Knee Walking

2012-01-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

Jesse's preferred method of transportation recently is moving sideways on his knees. It kind of looks like he's galloping on his knees.

Who Needs Sleep?

2012-01-18T08:17:00.000-08:00

I should know by now that if it's taking nearly an hour for Jesse to fall asleep, then he's probably up to something. He didn't sound upset, but I just thought I'd take a peek and see if he looked like he was almost asleep. As soon as I poked my head in the door I could see that he was clearly not close to falling asleep. He was sitting up, and upon further investigation I could tell that he was not fully clothed. I hesitated to post these pictures because he looks so pitiful in them, but he only got upset when I ran out of the room to grab the camera. Poor guy. I had no clue he was capable of getting his arm out of his shirt.

He was so upset after all this happened that I rocked him until he fell asleep. Of course, he woke up when I laid him down, and the next time I went in there to check on him he was happily standing up and had this look on his face like "I think I just got out of my nap this morning". And yes, he did get out of his nap.

The Birthday Party

2012-01-17T12:46:00.000-08:00

Monday morning we had Jesse's birthday party at our play group. It was lots of fun, although Jesse slept through the first half of it since we had his 12-month check-up at 8 A.M. and didn't get home until about half an hour before people came over.

It might be cheesy (and I know Jesse will never remember it), but I did a Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? theme for his party. It's not his favorite book to look at anymore, but for a while he really loved that book (probably something about all the different colors). This theme was easy, because it meant just using all the different colors represented by the animals in the book.

James helped me with this banner. I told him my idea for the banner the weekend before the party and he really wanted to help (fine by me because I'm terrible at making letters!).

Then I made lots of cupcakes and snacks, each one based off of a different animal in the book.

All the kids enjoyed playing. Jesse's new race-track was a big hit.

Here is most of our play group (minus two other mothers and their babies). It's tough to get a good picture with babies and toddlers, so we took several. Take note that Jesse is the only boy in his play group (and the two babies not pictured are also girls). I don't think he cares, though.

Here is kiss caught on camera...

First Bites of Cake

2012-01-15T08:30:00.000-08:00

For anyone who is interested, here is a shortened video of Jesse's first cake-eating experience as he Skyped with his Grandmama and Granddad. I say shortened, because it takes a one-year-old quite a while to eat most of a cupcake, especially this one-year-old, who has to meticulously inspect every new thing that he eats. There were definitely lots of shudders and grimaces as he tested the frosting, but in the end he decided he liked it pretty well.

Birthday Cupcakes

2012-01-14T17:40:00.001-08:00

To make a long story short, we had to postpone the party that we had planned to do with some of Jesse's play group buddies. My poor parents have gotten sick here, so we decided that I would just have the party at Jesse's play group on Monday.

Since James will be in class on Monday, we decided to go ahead and give Jesse his cupcake today. I found a very yummy recipe online for banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. They were a winner with him (that is, after he got over the foreign taste of the cream cheese frosting).

Skyping with Grandmama and Granddad while he ate his cupcake:

Come on, enough with the singing, let's eat...

Actually, I'm not so sure what I think about this...

Maybe a little frosting wouldn't hurt...

Maybe that wasn't such a good idea...

Nope, not a good idea at all. This is super sour...

Maybe it will taste better if Daddy feeds me some...

Yes, much better now...

Boy, this frosting sure is fun to play with.

Daddy, this stuff is good. You really need to try some, too.

But not you, Mama. You're in trouble.

Real big trouble. I'm not happy with you.

Just kidding. I love you, Mama. May I have some more tomorrow and every day after that?

Ahhh...sure is nice to get cleaned up and sit back and relax with a belly full of cake. Now let's Skype some more...

Then and Now

2012-01-14T13:11:00.000-08:00

January 12, 2011

January 12, 2012

One Year!

2012-01-12T12:18:00.000-08:00

I know it is cliche, but I don't know where the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday that we got to meet Jesse for the first time, and yet it feels like he's always been part of our family.

At one year, it seems like Jesse is learning something new everyday. I am amazed at how much babies change and learn in just the first year. It is so fun to watch him explore the world around him and experience new things. Here are some highlights of the past month:

- Jesse still seems pretty content to just crawl and cruise around the furniture, but there have been a number of times when he has looked like he is just about to take off and start walking. He also really loves to 'walk' all over the place on his knees. He will occasionally stand on his own, but he doesn't like it when we try to get him to do it. He has also taken a couple steps from James' arms to the couch (where his rubber ducky was waiting for him).

- Jesse has become a better eater over the past month, but it's not unusual for him to pretty much refuse to eat a meal here and there. He almost always eats a good breakfast and lunch, but dinner can go either way. He is still nursing five times a day, but I'm working on cutting one of those out and replacing it with a snack (the mid to late afternoon feeding). Some new foods this month have been chicken, beef pot roast, beans, watermelon, grapes, fish (but he didn't react too favorably to it), and a donut hole (compliments of Dada for his birthday). He has also shown an increased interest in veggies (yay!). Several times he has eaten green beans, sweet potatoes, sweet peas and broccoli and seemed to enjoy it. He pretty much just feeds himself everything, unless I am giving him yogurt, oatmeal or applesauce.

- I have tried giving him whole milk in the sippy cup several times recently. He really seemed to like it the first time, but sometimes he makes faces and doesn't want it. I am hoping the transition won't be too difficult for him or me. At this point I have to hold the sippy cup while he drinks out of it, because if I just give it to him it is immediately thrown very forcefully to the ground.

- While we were in Fayetteville over the break Jesse really began to say some words. When we got back he probably had 5 or so words in his vocabulary, and now we have counted 16. Of course, some of these words he uses a lot, and others he has only said several times. Here's the running list: Mama, Dada, Pop (my Dad), nana (banana), mil and mim (milk), mum-mum, baa, roar (what the lion says), door, dog, gir-uh (giraffe), brrr (as in, it's cold), bye, ree (read), and baby. He may or may not have tried to say rhinoceros (cerus) and he does make a snuffing sound for the rhinoceros, but I don't count this as a word, even though James does.

- He understands lots of words and simple commands and questions (e.g. find the lion, where is Jesse's ear, etc.).

- Jesse really loves his books, even though it's hard to get him to sit still for an entire book most of the time. Just the other day he started bringing me books to read to him. I didn't know if that's what he wanted at first, but he brought me one book and stood by the couch as I read the entire thing. Then I asked him to go get me another book to read and he did. He kept doing this until we had looked at nearly half his books (of course, as time went on, he wanted to look at fewer and fewer pages of the books before bringing me a new one). He has been doing this with my parents, too, while they have been here.

- His favorite toy is his Noah's Ark, because he loves opening and shutting the door and putting the animals in and taking them out. A week or so ago, he was really fixated with the lion and carried him around everywhere.

- We think Jesse has officially learned to throw a fit when he doesn't get his way. The baby days are over and the toddler years have arrived. The other night he was in such a foul mood because he only wanted watermelon for dinner, and then James wouldn't let him come in the kitchen while I was cleaning up after dinner. Jesse was crawling towards the kitchen, and all James did was sit down in his way so that he couldn't get in, and he just lost it. This guy can have some major attitudes and opinions. I can already tell that this stage will be very exhausting at times.

- He has two more bottom teeth coming in, making a total of 8 teeth.

And here are some more pictures, just for fun.

I think he looks really sassy in this one, taken on New Year's Day:

but really sweet in this one (just seconds after the previous one):

Rhinoceroses Snort and Snuff

2012-01-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

Jesse has decided he really loves the book "Moo Baa La La La" again. It used to be one of the only things that could predictably pacify him, then he grew bored with it for a while, and now he thinks it's hilarious. My parents are here for Jesse's birthday (today!) and I got a quick video of his reaction to it as we read it to him. He loves to "snuff" with the rhinos. (Oh, and please excuse the snoring in the background. That's not one of the animals. It's my Dad.)

I hope to have some birthday updates soon. We're doing a little party for him on Saturday, so stay tuned!

What Does the Sheep Say?

2012-01-04T13:17:00.000-08:00

I am finally back in the blogging world after an unintended hiatus. The holidays ended up being busier than I expected, and then when we got back it seemed that I stayed swamped with trying to get things back in order around here. I had good intentions to do some blogging last night, but my plans were thwarted when Jesse unexpectedly emptied the entire contents of his stomach at bedtime. He seems fine today, and really didn't act like he felt bad yesterday, except for refusing to take even so much as a bite of dinner (which isn't entirely out of character for him anyway). So since James was working last night, I spent my evening in the aftermath of Jesse's episode, which meant running two big loads of laundry, cleaning the floors, Jesse's furniture, Jesse, and myself. Thankfully Jesse appeared to feel just fine and he played in his crib as if nothing had happened while I restored some order to his room.

So on a totally different note, I'd like to share some videos of Jesse's new words. Over the past month Jesse has really begun to understand so much of what we say and has added a number of words to his vocabulary. It's so fun to watch him begin to make all these connections! He is now saying mama, dada, baa (everytime he sees a sheep or is asked what the sheep says), rah (when asked what the lion says), nana (for banana), and doh (for both door and dog). Whenever he adds a new word to his vocabulary, we hear it all the time. For instance, 'door' is one of his newer words and whenever we leave the building he says this everytime we pass through a door, which is four times. Here he is telling me what the sheep and lion say and saying 'dog'.

Christmas Time

2011-12-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

We've had lots of fun being in Fayetteville over the break. In fact, we've stayed so busy that I've hardly had time to get on the computer. It has been so fun spending time with family and friends, seeing James' little sister get married, watching Jesse experience the Christmas season for the first time, and getting to go out on a date for the first time in a couple months. Here is a little update on the festivities so far.

On Monday Jesse and his cousin Ben got to hang out for the first time since July. They had a blast...that is, until Jesse started playing bully (he doesn't understand that his "pats" on the head are a little too rough).

Here they are playing in Ben's tunnel:

Riding Grandma's rocking horse:

and playing with Ben's latch box:

James and Jesse had fun crushing peppermints for candy cane cookies:

Tonight we had fun eating dinner at Hugo's with my parents and seeing the lights on the square. Jesse had the time of his life at Hugo's. He became good friends with an older couple at a table close to ours. He kept looking at them and smiling and giggling and offering them pieces of his food (and of course, they were smiling and laughing, too). He was much more sedated on our walk around the square, but seemed to like seeing the lights and ponies.

He was so wound-up after our outing that we let him stay up a little later to burn off some energy.

Eleven Months

2011-12-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that in less than a month we'll have a one-year-old on our hands. This year has seriously flown by, and I can't even believe that Jesse is the same baby we brought home from the hospital. He has changed so much and so quickly.

Jesse's life at 11 months:

- He has been an especially great sleeper over the past month, still sleeping around 12 hours at night and taking two good naps a day. His naps have gotten a little longer recently, lasting anywhere from 1.5 to 2 hours rather than just an hour or slightly more. He is also sleeping a little later (closer to 7)and putting himself to sleep extremely easily (little to no crying), and I'm hoping that continues.

- Something clicked several weeks ago, and Jesse quite suddenly went from barely eating any solids to eating decent amounts two times a day. He is eating about 4 oz. of yogurt and fruit for breakfast and usually eats pieces of bread, turkey and some type of cheese for lunch along with some fruit. We give him a little bit of whatever we're having for dinner, but some nights he is just not interested. He really doesn't seem to care for green vegetables at all, and is not overly enthusiastic about orange veggies but will usually eat some if offered them. Any time we offer him a new food or a food that he hasn't had very much of, he is very skeptical and has to examine it with his eyes (and sometimes his fingers) before he will put it (or let us put it) in his mouth. I have to hold the food out, let him stare it down and then let him choose himself to take a bite...otherwise he just swats my hand away and gets upset. His favorite foods are yogurt, any type of fruit, bread, turkey, cheese and mashed potatoes.

- Just today he stood for about 5-10 seconds by himself twice.

- He says "mama" and "dada" all the time now. When he was sick he just constantly moaned "mama" (sometimes babbling and other times wanting me) and now that James has a break from school and has been around a lot more, he has really been into saying "dada". We think he might also be trying to say milk when he's hungry, but it's hard to tell (it comes out sounding like "mim" and "mil").

- Until recently, he didn't seem to be phased by another kid taking a toy out of his hands in the tot lot; he would just grab another toy and play with it. Now he is beginning to fight back and gets quite upset when something is taken from him.

I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of things, but you probably really just want the pictures, so here are a few of those:

Head Banging

2011-12-08T17:40:00.000-08:00

Jesse is such a boy. Today out of the blue he started throwing his head back into the back of his high chair. Then later this afternoon we were down in the tot lot and he started doing this into the hard concrete wall (that time it didn't last very long).

Opinionated

2011-12-04T19:06:00.000-08:00

Lately Jesse has become somewhat opinionated about which books we read. You may remember me writing about how much he loved the book "Moo Baa La La La" when he was younger. This book was the equivalent of a pacifier for Jesse; it made him so happy. Well, over the past two weeks he has developed pretty negative feelings towards this book for some reason. Every single time I open that book to read to him he slams it shut before I can read the first page, and sometimes he does this very impolitely and will cry and squirm to get out of my lap. There was one day this week that we would make it as far as the second page (with the sheep on it) and he would make an awful face and start to whimper and look away. He would look at any other book, but not that one. I got some video of James reading another book to him, and then reading "Moo Baa La La La". Jesse didn't get upset in this video, but you can see that he wanted to shut it at first. He actually ended up letting James finish the book here, so maybe he's getting over it, or maybe he'd just prefer his Daddy reading to him.

Here's another short video of James reading him another book about babies playing in water. Over the past several weeks he has kissed the same babies in the book every time I have read it to him. He started doing this on his own, but now we will ask him to kiss the babies when we read it to him. It is so cute! I don't know what it is about those particular babies!

Table Manners

2011-11-27T19:26:00.000-08:00

I think we're going to have to teach this guy some table manners!

The Idea Factory

2011-11-26T12:41:00.000-08:00

Today we went over to the Museum of Science and Industry. It was so packed with people that it was difficult to navigate the stroller through the crowds, but we had a fun time. We bought a membership, which allows us unlimited entry to the museum for us and one guest (come visit and you can come with us for free!), unlimited Omnimax tickets, free parking, and lots more! I have a feeling Jesse and I will be visiting the museum quite a lot in the winter months when we can't go outside but need to get out of our apartment building.

While James and Matt went to check out the submarine exhibit, I took Jesse to the Idea Factory, a place where young kids can run around (or crawl around) and do all kinds of fun things. There is an area perfect for Jesse's age. He loved crawling around all over the big mats and looking at himself in the mirrors. Unfortunately the fun had to stop a little early because we had a diaper situation to take care of and I had to track down the guys to get the diaper bag.

After spending some time at the Idea Factory, we all went to the Omnimax, which was featuring a film about the building of the first transcontinental railway through the Canadian Rockies. I was so impressed that Jesse made it nearly half an hour into the movie before he got fussy. He just laid in James' lap and watched; he was totally mesmerized by the scenery. I can't remember the last time he sat completely still for even just several minutes; this guy just loves to move, so it takes something pretty entertaining to get him to slow down.

Here are some pictures of Jesse having a blast in the Idea Factory.

Before leaving we also visited a seasonal exhibit which features Christmas trees from around the world. We knew Bulgaria was one of the countries so we had to find that one. This picture doesn't really do the tree any justice, but here it is anyway.

The Bean, Among Other Things

2011-11-26T07:03:00.001-08:00

After living in Chicago for 2.5 months, we have finally made it downtown to do some sightseeing. Having a visitor and time off from school are great excuses to do some of these things, and it was actually much easier than we thought to get downtown. We rode the Metra commuter rail, which is just about 3 blocks from our apartment and a 15-minute ride to Millenium Park. After getting off at Millenium Park, we took the obligatory pictures at the giant bean. Even though I had been to Chicago before moving here, I had never seen the bean before.

Then we walked through Millenium Park and Grant Park to the Museum Campus. We had planned to go to the Shedd Aquarium, but the line was insanely long due to a new exhibit that had just opened, so we made the decision to explore the Field Museum instead. We stopped first for a snack by the lake.

Jesse got a short but much-needed nap while we went through a large exhibit about the Ancient Americas, the people of the Northwest Coast and the North American Indians. He woke up just in time to go inside the Pawnee Earth Lodge (picture below) and then go see some huge stuffed animals.

It was a fun day, and now that we've figured out how easy it is to get downtown with public transportation, we will probably do it again soon!

Thanksgiving Break

2011-11-25T18:24:00.000-08:00

This week has been such a great break from our crazy lives here. It has been so great to have James home during the day, and even though we couldn't celebrate Thanksgiving with family, we got to spend Thanksgiving with our friend Matt who came to visit and also with some new friends here in our building.

We have such good memories of making our Thanksgiving and Christmas meals in Bulgaria that we decided we had to do it again even though our neighbors had already invited us over for a Thanksgiving meal. I tried to keep the meal fairly simple since we would be having another one later in the day, but it's really hard to cut things out, so it ended up being more than I had planned. I will say, though, that getting together a traditional Thanksgiving meal felt so simple here compared to overseas, where it was difficult to find the right ingredients.

This year I decided to try out a brine, and I think it worked really well. The turkey turned out very juicy and flavorful. This brine is a mixture of saltwater, brown sugar and fresh sage, rosemary and thyme. It's a good thing that we had just bought a plastic tub for Jesse's bath toys, because I found out at the last minute that our turkey wouldn't fit in our largest pot. This plastic tub was the perfect size for the turkey and our fridge. Here is our turkey taking his overnight bath.

Making cranberry relish:

James made the pumpkin pie:

Enjoying the fruits of our labor (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, cranberry relish and pumpkin pie):

Four hours later we went up to our neighbors' apartment and joined them and two other families for a 100% Kosher Thanksgiving meal. I wish I had pictures of this, but I forgot to take them. It was a delicious and elaborate meal, and they were so gracious to host all of us and prepare this excellent meal. I am so thankful for good friends to spend Thanksgiving with!

Sharing

2011-11-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

This afternoon Jesse was eating a Mum-Mum (baby rice cracker) and started offering me bites. He did this the other night when we went out to eat, too. When it comes to his food, this guy is not greedy (at least not yet). I had to run to grab the video camera in the middle of it, so he had forgotten about sharing at first, but it wasn't long before he was offering me bites again.

Also, I'm not 100% convinced, but I think he might actually be saying "mum mum" in reference to the food. It's hard to tell because he makes lots of sounds that begin with the letter 'm', but it seems like every time I sit him down in his high chair he starts to say this, and as soon as I get out the mum mums he smiles and stops. I guess time will tell...

Who knew he would like these this much? I only wish they had a little more nutritional value in them. Maybe I will have to invent a super baby mum mum that is packed with nutrients...

Decking the Halls

2011-11-20T12:17:00.000-08:00

We are usually very insistent upon not getting out the Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving, but this year we decided to do things differently. I realized the other day that we would only get to enjoy the decorations for a couple weeks if we waited until after Thanksgiving, since we will be going to Fayetteville sometime the second week of December. So, in an effort to maximize our enjoyment of these things, we decided to put up the tree a week early. James insisted that Jesse be awake when we got the tree out, so here are some pictures of our festivities. Jesse didn't seem to be too excited about the tree (he liked playing with the branches, but we quickly took those away since he could easily poke an eye out with the ends of them), but he loved the lights.

Playing with his Little People Nativity Set. He loves making it play music (Away in a Manger) and chewing on all the pieces. He also loves turning the stable on its side and putting all the people and animals in it.

When James draped the lights on himself, Jesse thought this was really funny.

His favorite part of the nativity set is baby Jesus. He shows his love by putting baby Jesus in his mouth, of course.

Ten Months!

2011-11-13T08:05:00.001-08:00

Our little man turned 10 months old yesterday and I can hardly believe it! It has been a good month and Jesse is changing and growing so much. I love seeing him discover new things. I feel like we have established a really nice routine over the past month, since Jesse finally went down to just two naps a day last month.

New things at 10 months:

He pulls up on everything he possibly can and cruises around all our furniture. He learned very quickly how to get himself back down, so we have had very few falls, except for the times when he has decided to just let go completely. He will stand alone for a few seconds, but then he inevitably crashes.
He really, really loves doors. He especially loves the doors to our bedrooms and one particular cabinet door in the kitchen (the others are locked). He just sits or stands by the door and opens and closes it (under very close supervision of course), sometimes for quite a while. He also goes immediately to all the doors in the tot lot: the doors to the pretend houses and the castle and the mailbox. Doors are just super fascinating to him. Thankfully he hasn't figured out how our sliding closet doors work just yet.
This past week he learned to clap his hands and now does it all the time, whether we ask him to or not.
He is still really fascinated by certain books and certain pages of books. Sometimes he just laughs for no apparent reason when we're reading to him. For a while, he would always kiss the "little mouse" in Goodnight Moon (that page is actually a little dirty from his kisses) and he loves all the books where he can touch different textures.
He seems to notice other babies his age much more now. Not only does he try to kiss them, but the other day it was so cute when he and his twelve-month-old friend Sid seemed to lock eyes from across the tot lot, give each other huge grins, and then crawl across the room to each other. Then they continued to follow each other around and play with the same toys.
He pretty much hates being fed solids (unless it's yogurt and bananas because he will do anything to get his favorite treat). He just swats the spoon or our hand away and gets upset and the whole thing just becomes a frustrating experience for me and for him. The whole baby food thing has just been a struggle with him from the beginning, so I have decided that we are done with it. I still try to feed him yogurt and fruit in the morning, because he accepts this pretty well, but we are just doing table food now, and letting him eat whatever he can pick up and feed to himself. He loves eating bread and cheese at lunch time because these are two foods that he can pretty easily feed himself. I am hoping that he will quickly get better at feeding himself more slippery things, like fruits and veggies (he has gotten pretty good at picking up and eating banana...go figure).
Speaking of food, he really loves his Puffs and every time I get out the container to give him some, his face lights up.

Here's an idea of what a day in the life of Jesse is like. It varies a little day to day depending on when he wakes up, how long his naps are and whether or not we have somewhere we have to go. I try to get out with him each day (for both my sanity and his), whether it's Bible study, going to the produce market, or running some other errand, but this might change a little once we have snow on the ground and it's freezing outside.

6-6:30 Wakes up and nurses

6:30-9:00 Play time at home

8:00 Breakfast, usually yogurt and fruit, but sometimes he hardly eats

9:00 Nurses and goes down for his morning nap

10:00-10:30 Wakes up from nap; this is the time we run errands or take a walk

12:00 Lunch and play at home

1 or 1:30 Nurses and goes down for afternoon nap

2:30-3:30 Usually wakes up from nap, plays for a bit and then nurses

4:00-5:00 Play time in the tot lot or getting out and going somewhere

5:30 Dinner, bath-time some nights

6:30 Nurses and bed-time

Playing with his favorite cabinet door in the kitchen:

Eating lunch:

Getting into trouble in the kitchen:

Bathtime is so much fun:

Tot Lot Romance

2011-11-09T18:35:00.001-08:00

Jesse really has a thing for giving kisses. He kisses us, his stuffed animals, pictures of people, books, pretty much anything. Well, the other day he crawled right on over to his almost-one-year-old friend Alyse and gave her a big, wet smooch. This was pretty sweet for several reasons, one being that Jesse was being unusually gentle (most of the interaction between him and other babies consists of pulling hair, yanking eyelashes, putting fingers dangerously close to eyes, and just being generally rough).

Jesse must be a little prince charming, because now he has wooed Alyse into kissing back. Yesterday in the tot lot we looked down to see the two of them kissing each other on the mouth behind one of the big toys. Alyse's mouth was wide-open; she was definitely not running away. In fact, when we pulled the two babies apart to make sure that an eye didn't end up getting gouged out, Alyse crawled off blowing kisses to Jesse. I had no idea that all the drama could begin so early...

Bath Time Fun!

2011-11-07T17:35:00.000-08:00

Just a little glimpse into how fun bath time is for Jesse. Of course, getting out is a completely different story.

Saying Mommy

2011-11-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

I took some video to document Jesse's intense dislike of getting out of the bath, and he surprised me by saying "Mommy". Even though he's been babbling "mama" and "dada" for a long time, it's just more recently that he appears to understand what these words mean. Last weekend Jesse and I went on a women's retreat with our church, and when we got back home he was acting much more attached to me than usual (I am guessing because it was just the two of us all weekend and he hadn't seen James in several days). Every time I would leave the room he would fuss and say "mama", and then when I would come back he would reach for me and say it again. Then, several days ago James was holding him and he said "dada" to him; when we asked him to say it again, he said it immediately, clear as day. Usually he says "mama" whenever he is upset or hungry.

Fighting Sleep

2011-10-31T13:32:00.000-07:00

Jesse has not wanted to sleep today, and I think it's because he has some new skills (i.e. pulling up) that are far more entertaining than sleep. At the moment he is sleeping peacefully, but I'm expecting that it could end at any moment. After playing in his crib for nearly an hour he finally fell asleep, but then woke up after less than 30 minutes of sleep, so I ignored it and after 15 minutes of screaming he is now back asleep, hopefully for longer this time because he really needs it. He was in there playing for much of the hour before he fell asleep, but at one point it got really quiet, so I tiptoed back there to take a peek at him and heard a soft scratching sound. When I poked my head in the door I could see that he was most definitely not asleep, but he was standing up and scraping his teeth on his crib railings. Not only this, but he had apparently been doing so for awhile, because he had brown stains from the crib wood all over his face...it looked like he had been out playing in mud. Anyway, I couldn't resist taking some video of Jesse's playtime. I probably wasn't helping him fall asleep by going in there and taking video, but he was too cute.

Little Scientist

2011-10-31T12:25:00.001-07:00

Most of the museums here have periodic free days when Illinois residents can get free general admission. Today the Museum of Science and Industry was free, and since it's within walking distance from us, I decided to take Jesse. We had fun walking around and seeing a model train exhibit, a baby chick hatchery, and a model farm. There is a fun area for toddlers and preschoolers that Jesse will be able to enjoy pretty soon, but we didn't check that out today. Jesse enjoyed all the sights and sounds, and it was so fun to see him smile when he saw all the tiny baby chicks. I'm so glad there are so many fun (and free!) things to do nearby!

Looking at the model trains wind through mountains and cities...

Raising his hand to ask a question about how greenhouses affect plant growth...

Looking at a John Deere tractor at the farm exhibit...

Feeling a cold tube that shows how cold milk gets once it goes into storage tanks. He seemed very intrigued by this.

Learning about cow poop...what could possibly be more interesting for little boys?

And of course, I couldn't resist taking a picture in front of the "say cheese" sign...

Fun in the Tot Lot

2011-10-27T18:53:00.001-07:00

We spend lots of time down in the 'Tot Lot' when the weather is not so nice. This place is usually full of kids between 4:00 and 5:00 every afternoon, but Jesse had the whole place to himself when we first went down there yesterday, so I thought I'd get some pictures. This place is wonderful, because there is an endless supply of toys for Jesse to play with, other kids to interact with, and of course adult conversation for me.

Jesse loves to play in this little house. He especially loves opening and closing the mailbox and the front door.

He also loves to make music with the xylophones...

Playing peek-a-boo in the big house...

Pulling Up

2011-10-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Jesse and I were downstairs playing in the indoor playroom with a friend from our building and her little girl. She told me that "tomorrow Jesse will be pulling himself up", and sure enough she was exactly right!

As I was getting my breakfast ready this morning, I turned around and found him standing up in his pack 'n play. He was so proud of himself! He's been getting up on his knees for a while now, and will even "walk around" like this with the help of toys with wheels, but he just hasn't ever seemed very interested in getting onto his feet until today.

Then later I found him standing up in his crib after I had put him down for his nap.

Who knows how long it will be before he is cruising and trying to take his first steps...it could be soon or it could still be a while yet. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's so exciting to see your child learn new things and reach new milestones (and believe me, our backs could use a break, so reaching the walking milestone would be kind of nice), but on the other hand, that means that he will be getting into more and more things and that he will be harder to keep up with. Either way is just fine, though...we'll just have to wait and see.

Blessed

2011-10-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

Today I am celebrating 26 years of life, and I get to spend it with these two guys!

It's a goofy picture, yes, but it shows some of the fun we've had today. While Jesse is napping and I'm waiting to switch the laundry, I thought I'd write a quick post.

Jesse and I took a walk over to campus this morning and met James for lunch. I brought along some Puffs for Jesse to munch on while we ate, but today he was more interested in putting them in James' mouth than his own (as seen in above picture). Those that he did eat, he ate very meticulously, biting off all the tiny points one at a time until he only had a teeny tiny piece left, and then he would finish it off. (Another tidbit...I think Jesse may be a leftie, because he will only put food in his mouth with his left hand...if he picks something up with his right hand, he always transfers it to his left hand before eating it.)

Here are some more pictures of our outing. I am probably overdoing the pictures lately, but I know there are some grandparents out there who don't mind. :)

We had a hard time getting him to "pose" for a serious picture with me, but at least he would look at the camera when distracted with a lens cap.

The Return of our Little Man

2011-10-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

I think Jesse is on the mend now. At least, he has seemed more like his normal, happy self today. You know something's wrong when it's hard to get smiles and giggles out of this guy. Here's our happy guy on our walk and also enjoying some snuggle time with Dad.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

2011-10-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

We keep having gorgeous fall days here, and each time we decide we must get out and enjoy it because we think it's our last one. I think tomorrow's supposed to be nice, too, but it looks like colder weather is in the forecast soon, so we might be nearing the end of these beautiful days. Don't get me wrong...I'm looking forward to cold weather and snow, but I am dreading the length of winter here.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some pictures from our walk through the neighborhood today. We took a leisurely stroll to Jackson Park, where we enjoyed a peaceful and tranquil time (see picture below) in the Japanese Osaka Garden. Then we came back home through campus. I thought I'd share with you some pictures of our neighborhood and the park.

Lots of geese behind the Museum of Science and Industry:

The lagoon in Jackson Park:

Entering the Osaka Garden in Jackson Park:

If you can't read the sign, it says "the Osaka Japanese Garden is a culturally authentic site, designed to create a feeling of peace and tranquility".

Heading back home through campus:

Pretty houses near our building:

Apple Pickin'

2011-10-22T18:57:00.001-07:00

Today we set out to pick some apples at County Line Orchard in Indiana. There were tons of different activities at the orchard (corn maze, petting zoo, kiddie train, pumpkin patches, etc.), but since Jesse hasn't been feeling very well, we made it a quick trip and just picked apples. It might qualify us for the bad parents of the year award, seeing as Jesse isn't quite feeling his normal self, but I think he probably enjoyed getting out more than he would have enjoyed staying in, and the weather was actually really nice. Sometimes he acts like he isn't sick at all, but then other times he seems quite pitiful (like when he coughs). I wouldn't say that Jesse was overjoyed to go on this trip (as you can probably see from the pictures), but I think it was a good distraction from his little bug, and it helped me maintain my sanity, since I have been inside most of the week, due to all the rain and wind that we had here.

In the car on the way there. You can see he is not too stoked. I felt so bad for him, so I rode in the backseat with him to keep him company. I just hate seeing him not feel well. It hurts.

Riding the tractor to the apple orchards. I think Jesse and James look a lot alike in this picture (and this was taken just after a lady commented on how much they resemble one another).

Not a good picture, but I love Jesse's facial expression. I think he's saying, "Enough already, can we get out of here?"

Lots of pretty apples...

We came home with a nice, big bag of apples, but I was too pooped to do anything with them tonight, so I am hoping that tomorrow I can make some applesauce and maybe an apple pie. Yum!

Tiny Dancer

2011-10-22T18:52:00.000-07:00

James has been working with Jesse, trying to teach him how to dance. His first dance move basically consists of bouncing up and down while standing on his knees and holding onto a coffee table or an object of similar height. Jesse usually smiles and giggles when dancing, but the poor little guy seems to have caught some kind of cold or other kind of virus and has not been his normal self the past couple days. So here's the best example we have at the moment:

Applesauce Faces

2011-10-14T16:43:00.000-07:00

Apparently applesauce is really sour to Jesse. He loved it the first time I gave it to him, but today he wouldn't stop grimacing and shuddering and making sour faces. Surprisingly, he kept opening his mouth for more. I was glad to capture some of these faces on the camera.

But...it all ended happily. Nothing better than water to wash down that tart applesauce.

Obviously he prefers crackers to applesauce...

Nine Months

2011-10-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

Another month has flown by and now Jesse is three-quarters of a year old! Today's the day, and for once I am on top of things--I got a picture of him on his blanket and did a little photo shoot with him on a walk today...I just might even finish this post before the day's over, too.

New things at 9 months:

Jesse has gotten to be a really fast crawler.
He definitely understands "no", and at this point, he is obedient much of the time. There are several things we don't want him to get into that aren't baby-proofed, so whenever he goes near these areas we'll say "no" and he almost always turns and looks at us, and then turns away from it. Of course, he often tries to go back, but each time we say "no" and after several times he gets the idea and moves elsewhere.
Still giving us lots of kisses (and huge grins when he does it), but now he is into kissing lots of things, like his stuffed animals and even inanimate objects like books and beds.
Just started waving bye-bye. The other morning I told him to wave bye-bye to James (and of course I waved to show him what I meant) and he just did it like he had been doing it all along.
He is finally down to just two naps a day. He takes his morning nap around 9:00 and it lasts anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours, but I would say an hour or so is most common. He usually starts his afternoon nap sometime between 1 and 2, and it is about the same length, maybe slightly longer on average. He goes to bed between 6 and 7, but probably closer to 7 most nights, and wakes up around 6 most mornings.
He now has 3 teeth coming in on top, which would explain why he has been waking up a little at night recently and having trouble getting back to sleep.
Three days ago I would have said that his interest in solids is still minimal, but these past 3 days he has been noticeably more interested. I'm not sure if it's coincidence or not, but this sudden increase in interest coincided with my decision to begin offering him small amounts of solids three times a day. Previously I was offering solids once a day, maybe twice, but I decided that maybe more persistence on my part and more frequent exposure might help him get better used to them. So the past three days he has eaten 3 small servings of solids a day (1-2 tablespoons each time), which may sounds like nothing, but the fact that he very obviously wants more than just a couple bites is encouraging. He usually eats yogurt and some fruit in the morning, cereal (oats, millet and brown rice) with a veggie for dinner, and something random for lunch (avocado or another veggie with cereal). Some new foods lately have been plum, butternut squash, summer squash and applesauce. He really doesn't seem to be a picky eater (green beans are the only thing he hasn't wanted much to do with), but he just doesn't like large quantities. We've also been giving him baby puffs, which he has gotten pretty good at getting into his mouth, and also mum mums (kinda like crackers), which he seems to really enjoy.

Here is Jesse's monthly blanket picture. I forgot to do one at 8 months, but I guess the move was a good excuse.

And here are some pictures of my impromptu 9-month photo shoot. A friend and I took our kids to Promontory Point, a nearby park on a piece of land that juts out into Lake Michigan and has some awesome views of downtown. Jesse's a big boy in a big city!

He loves all the space to roam around wherever he wants. I just have to make sure he doesn't eat too many leaves or too much grass.

Jesse and his buddy Sid (almost 11 months), playing with Mickey:

Racing to see who can get to Mickey first:

And now Jesse tackles Sid to get Mickey back:

Hide and Seek

2011-10-07T17:03:00.000-07:00

We had some fun family time today since James is able to get home early on Fridays. Our Wednesdays and Thursdays are kind of crazy, since he leaves at 7:30 in the morning and doesn't get back until sometime between 9:30 and 10:00 at night. Friday afternoons are a treat since we can all spend time together. This afternoon we took a really long walk, and by the time we got home Jesse was kind of wired. His naps were pretty short today (he has a tooth coming in that seems to be causing him some pain), so by 5:30 or 6:00 he was quite hyper and needing to go to sleep. Here's a little bit of that captured on video. I'm not sure if he was truly playing along with my game or not, but he seems to be, since he turned around almost every time I said "where's Jesse?".

Fun at the Beach

2011-10-06T17:10:00.001-07:00

This week the weather has been exceptionally wonderful with highs in the upper 70s and lower 80s and plentiful sunshine. Knowing that this might be the last week of nice weather before the cold sets in, a group of us from our building headed over to the beach this morning. Last time we were at the beach Jesse was 5 months old, but this time he was all over the place and eating lots of sand. I just decided that it was not a battle worth fighting and that a little sand won't hurt anything. He was one messy little boy when we got home, though.

Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-01T11:33:00.000-07:00

This morning we took Jesse to get his flu shot and we stopped at a nearby park on the way home to check out their pumpkin patch and other fall festivities. Fall has definitely made its way to Chicago; the leaves are beginning to change colors and its getting colder. One thing about fall here is that it does not waste any time coming. There's not much back and forth weather here. It really hasn't gotten up past 80 the whole time we've been here, and last night it was cold enough that we decided to pull out Jesse's fleece pajamas.

Here are some pictures of our pumpkin patch adventure. Of course, the pumpkins eventually went in Jesse's mouth, just like everything else. Oh, and in case you wonder, Jesse and James did not purposefully coordinate their outfits today.

Indiana Dunes

2011-09-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

This weekend is our last "free weekend" before James starts classes, so we figured we should get out and do something fun before he is swamped with work. It would have been fun to explore a museum or something here in the city, but with the weather already starting to get pretty cool, we thought maybe it was a good idea to do something that we won't be able to do once winter sets in. Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is just an hour's drive from us, and we had a great time walking through some dunes and getting some gorgeous lakefront views. The rest of Northwestern Indiana seemed quite "bleh" to us, but the park was beautiful.

Hyper Boy

2011-09-24T18:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a video of James making Jesse laugh tonight after dinner. Don't be fooled when Jesse lays down...he is only getting started then. And one disclaimer...you might not be able to hear the toy playing music at one point during the video, but that is what I meant when I said something about Jesse "making music with his bottom". He sat on the toy and it started playing music. Just didn't want anyone to take that the wrong way :)

8 Months!

2011-09-21T17:09:00.000-07:00

We celebrated eight months of Jesse the day we moved into our new place, so needless to say, I am just now getting around to writing my monthly update. This last month has felt like a whirlwind, and I can finally say that we are now somewhat settled and unpacked. It sure is great to have the move behind us and our lives back in some kind of order. I think it's good for Jesse, too. He seemed to sense that things weren't quite the same--I mean, it would be kind of weird to wake up each morning to find more things rearranged and boxed up. And since he has started crawling, it just meant more things that he wasn't allowed to get into. Now we are back into a daily routine, which is good for all of us.

Here's what Jesse's been up to the past month:

He has become a really good crawler and loves to get into everything. Somehow he just knows which things he is NOT supposed to get into. He absolutely loves shoes (gross!), electrical wires, and drawers. He's pulling up to his knees a lot, but hasn't quite mastered getting up onto his feet all by himself.
Related to crawling, he has turned into such a content baby over this past month. He was fairly fussy early on in his life, but ever since he could sit up on his own for long periods of time, he quickly began to entertain himself quite easily. Now that he can crawl, he is even more content. There was one point about this time last month that I told James that I felt like Jesse didn't even need me anymore (except for eating and keeping him out of trouble, of course). He's just so happy exploring, or playing with a box of toys, or hanging out in the jump-up.
He is still growing like a weed, or so we think. We don't go back to the doctor until 9 months, but according to our scale he is over 22 pounds, and according to a yardstick he is getting near 29 inches. I'm glad that his 18-month clothes don't swallow him up, because that is pretty much all we have for fall/winter clothing, and it is already chilly here. He even fits into some 24-month pants that we have, as long as we roll up the legs.
He may be growing like a weed, but his interest in solids has waned. I would say he is moderately interested most of the time that I offer them, but he could really care less whether or not he gets them each day, and he usually only wants 4 or 5 bites (maybe 1/2 tablespoon, sometimes 1 tablespoon), unless it's bananas or peaches, and then he will eat it all. He makes it very clear when he's had enough (turns his head or screams) and he still acts like the first bite of every food (even his favorite foods) is sour. I have tried all kinds of things--feeding solids early in the day, late in the day, mid-day, before nursing, after nursing, half-way between nursings--and nothing seems to make a difference. Some days he wants them, and some days he doesn't. He doesn't appear to be starving, so I'll just assume that he's fine and that one of these days he'll come around.
He is understanding so much more of what we say and what is going on around him. He has been giving kisses on command for a while now, and it is so sweet! He will almost always give me multiple kisses when I ask, but he is more stingy with other people. We also have the book "Pat the Bunny" and he loves to play peek-a-boo with Paul (lifts up a flap to see Paul's face) and smell the flowers (he puts his nose to the page and sniffs). The other pages he just wants to chew.
He doesn't show many signs of separation anxiety yet. He is still ok whenever we leave him in the nursery at church or with other people, but a lot of times he will cry whenever I leave the room when we're at home (and sometimes he will do this when James leaves, too). He mainly does this first thing in the morning--when he wakes up James will often go and get him and bring him to our room, and then I'll leave to go put in my contacts before I feed him, and that's when he loses it, because he knows that I am his source of food.
He is sleeping well, and pretty much sleeps through the night (11-12 hours) again, now that we allowed him to do some crying when he began to get up a lot around 6 months. He slept pretty horribly, however, the night we slept at my parents' house and the night we slept in a hotel outside of Chicago. I'm not sure if it was the Pack 'n Play or him being in the same room as us, but it was pretty rough, and we didn't feel that we could just let him cry himself to sleep in a hotel, so we were up with him a lot. Once we got to our apartment, though, we set up his bed immediately, and the whole time my parents were here he never woke up once at night. Since they have left, he has woken up some, but I'm thinking it's because of the teeth he has coming in. On the nap front, he sometimes takes 2 naps a day, but lots of days he still takes 3.

Those are some of the highlights from Jesse's eighth month of life. I have to include a funny story from one of our first evenings in Chicago. We were walking back to our apartment after eating dinner, and there was a line of cars stopped at a stop light. Most of them had their windows down because the weather was so nice. James was holding Jesse so that he was facing out, and Jesse was in a super happy mood. He was flailing his arms everywhere and just babbling away, and he caught the eyes of some ladies in one of the cars. They started cracking up and yelling "hey baby" to him and Jesse loved the attention, so he got even more animated, which caused pretty much all the passengers of every car in line to talk to him, too. I do have to say that he has gotten a heavy dose of attention here in Hyde Park. The other day at the produce market he started fussing a little bit in line, and a lady came up to him and said to him "you too handsome to be mean" and "you feisty". I think he's going to like all the new people and sights in his new neighborhood...there's so much to take in.

That's all for now. I hope to have an update on the move soon, but I wanted to jot down some things about Jesse before I forgot. I'll leave you with some pictures.

Our Future Banjo Player

2011-09-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

Jesse seemed really fascinated by James' banjo playing the other day, so I had to get out the camera. He'll probably be wanting lessons before we know it!

Cleaning out the Closets

2011-09-04T05:24:00.000-07:00

This time next week we'll be on the road to Chicago, probably getting ready to cross the state line into Missouri. We've begun the packing process this week, and yesterday we decided to go through lots of our keepsake and memory boxes to get rid of stuff (the things we found could warrant an entire post, but I will spare everyone). I wouldn't consider myself a pack rat by any means, but a person would wonder if they saw some of the things I have kept over the years. I mean, seriously, was it necessary for me to keep every single wedding card we ever received? And by this, I mean cards from people we've never met, and the gift tags that come on gift bags. I bet there were 100 small tags from Bed, Bath and Beyond sacks. Needless to say, these went in the trash pile.

Of course, we have a little crawler who loves to "help" us. After we had cleared out the closet in our office yesterday, we decided to take a break and play a game of peekaboo. This video doesn't quite do justice to Jesse's excitement at this game.

Cheerios!

2011-08-22T16:20:00.001-07:00

We gave Jesse some cheerios on his high chair the other day for him to play with. They entertained him for a while and kept him from getting fussy. He's pretty good at picking them up, but he doesn't even attempt to get them in his mouth. They might be the only thing he hasn't tried to get in his mouth. Since they dissolve so easily, I gave him one just to see what he would think, and you can see from this video that he had several reactions: perplexed, utterly disgusted, bored, and a short moment of anger (at least, that's my interpretation of his facial expressions).

Adventures in Eating

2011-08-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

So far Jesse has tried 7 foods and now likes all of them. The first couple weeks of trying solids he acted like we were feeding him poison, at least for the first couple bites. He quickly picked up on the whole eating thing, though, and began opening his mouth for the spoon, and now he "helps" us feed him by holding onto the spoon and pulling it towards his mouth. The past several days he has gotten noticeably more excited about his food and will be upset if we are eating a meal and he doesn't get anything. We usually just feed him solids mid-day, but I think it won't be long before he is eating two meals a day.

These are the foods he has tried, in order of when we introduced them. Banana was love at first bite, avocado took three days but now he loves it, and he now likes brown rice cereal as long as we mix a fruit or veggie into it.

brown rice cereal
sweet potato
banana
millet cereal
avocado
carrot
plain yogurt

In the next month I am hoping to introduce Jesse to oats, barley, green beans, butternut squash, peas, summer squash, and several fruits, like peaches and pears. I am definitely looking forward to getting settled in Chicago so that I can cook up some large batches of baby food and freeze it. I have frozen small portions of food for Jesse here, but I am afraid to make too much, because then I'll just have to throw it out before the move.

This week I decided to try my hand at making homemade yogurt, which actually ended up turning out quite well. Today I gave him yogurt for the first time and he loved it way more than I thought he would. I mixed it with some mashed banana and he ate it all up very quickly. Curious if he would like the yogurt all by itself, I then tried giving him some without anything in it, and he loved it like that, too. He always made a sour face in between bites (I think the tart flavor of the yogurt was a little shock to him), but always reached for more and gladly accepted it.

Eating yogurt today:

Eating bananas on a recent trip to visit family in Texarkana:

Here he is in my old high chair at my parents' house. He got very distracted by the nice wooden tray that he could chew on. I must have done the same thing as a baby because there were bite marks all over it even before Jesse sat in it.

Seven Months

2011-08-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

I was waiting in line at Sonic this afternoon when I realized that today is Jesse's seven-month birthday. Time must really be flying, because I keep telling people (and myself) that Jesse is six-and-a-half months old, and for some reason I've been thinking that he'll be seven months next week, so I was shocked to look at the date on my phone and realize that he is now officially seven months old. I am really bad about taking a monthly picture (especially on the right day), so I came home and took one before I forgot. Since he has a one-month and five-month picture on the same blanket, I'll just continue to go with this idea.

What Jesse is up to at 7 months:

In the past couple weeks (and especially this past week) he has really taken to solid foods. He hasn't met a food he doesn't like. More on that in another post.
Still nursing about 5 times a day (or every 3 to 3.5 hours)
Still taking 3 naps a day, but sometimes just 2. He takes a short nap in the early morning, a longer one around lunchtime, and a longer one mid-afternoon. He is getting better and better about staying up longer periods of time. I am looking forward to him dropping that third nap so that his daytime sleep will be more consolidated, which will make it easier for us to go places without me having to worry about him falling asleep in the car and messing up his sleep schedule. I can usually get him out of his car seat and into his crib without waking him up, but sometimes I can't and then he won't go back to sleep, which makes for a fussy day.
Overall he is still sleeping well at night. He usually goes down by 7, but sometimes earlier if he's been up a long time or didn't take good naps during the day, and he wakes up around 6 or so. Because he is so easy to rock to sleep, we had decided to hold off on letting him cry himself to sleep, but we decided otherwise earlier this week because of some night waking issues. He used to cry out at night and we could just stick his pacifier back in and he would immediately calm down and go back to sleep (he never seemed to completely wake up), but recently he will be wide awake when we go in there, and he's also started crying out multiple times before we even get in bed at night. Since he doesn't seem hungry and since we don't want to get in the habit of rocking him back to sleep multiple times a night, it seemed our best bet was to let him cry. (I think he actually just wanted our company, because he was very content as long as we stood there over his crib with our hand on him, but as soon as we walked out he would cry). The first time we let him do this was rough, and he cried about 45 minutes, but the next time we let him cry it was just 20 minutes, and then when he woke up really early at 5 a.m. the next morning, he cried for just several minutes before going back to sleep until 6:30. We thought we'd just let him cry in the middle of the night when he woke up, but I was having trouble getting him down for the night several nights ago, so I let him cry and he fell asleep pretty quickly. The new routine is to sing him several songs before bedtime or naptime and then lay him down in his crib (assuming he's not asleep or almost asleep). So far, so good, and it seems that he is staying asleep all night again but I don't want to speak too soon since we haven't been doing this very long, so we'll see if he keeps this up.
His favorite toys seem to be things that aren't toys at all. He will entertain himself for a long time with my make-up bag (he especially loves the tube of mascara and the mirrors...we will have to put this to a stop before too long). He also loves to sit by his big box of toys and take everything out. He is entertained much longer like this, whereas he gets bored really quickly sitting on his blanket with just one or two toys.
I think he's going to crawl soon, because he is really good at getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth. I know he really wants to be mobile.
We can tell that he is becoming more and more attached to us, and especially me. He has started crying a little when I go out the door, and one morning this week James watched him before work while I ran to the store, and I could tell he was so happy to see me return because he had the biggest smile and kept giggling when I walked back in. He will also reach for me sometimes when he wants me to pick him up.

Jesse's Crazy Faces

2011-08-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

We were outside yet again in all this heat, and Jesse let me get some good pictures of him. I actually wasn't expecting to get anything very interesting, and I had already put my camera away, when out of the blue Jesse began laughing and making some really silly faces. I'm glad I could capture these. What a goofy guy! Any ideas for captions?

Almost Crawling

2011-08-05T14:47:00.000-07:00

We think we may have a crawler on our hands in the near future. Jesse has been getting up on his hands and knees and hands and feet a lot lately and has even taken a couple "steps" (enlighten me if you know what to call these...a couple "crawls"?). Looks like we'll have a little "helper" when we start packing things up, although he might be more help unpacking.

Heat Wave

2011-08-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

It may be a scorching 110 degrees outside, but sometimes a fussy baby just needs to be outside and everything gets better. Lots of days I take Jesse out on our balcony to sit in his seat and play with toys. The heat doesn't seem to phase him...he can be entertained out there for quite a while. Since the lighting is always good on our balcony in the afternoon, I snapped some more pictures of him out there. I don't really mind the heat all that much, but I am really looking forward to some cooler weather so that we can start going on walks again. We might have to wait for Chicago, though.

Play Time!

2011-08-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

Jesse loves his new play group, and so do I! Actually, I probably enjoy it way more than he does at this point. It's great to get together with a group of new Moms each week and talk about Mom stuff. Jesse is the oldest, and the others in the picture are all fairly close to the same age (between 3.5 and 4.5 months). Starting with Jesse and going counter-clockwise, the babies are Jesse, Evalie, Isaac, Natalie, Emerson, and Ruby.

We are going to have to work with Jesse on his social skills (yes, I know he's just a baby...I'm joking here). He has recently acquired a VERY shrill scream that gives me a headache and makes his friend Emerson cry. And, he tried to eat Ruby and pinch her face at the first play group. Looks like we've got our hands full with this one!

But then they decided to be friends again and held hands. How sweet...

Copycat

2011-07-24T19:36:00.001-07:00

Jesse has recently learned to mimic our actions pretty well. He will shake his toys when we do, and today James got down on the floor with him to do some push-ups. I am loving this stage!

Where's Jesse?

2011-07-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

This video was taken nearly a month ago, but you can see that Jesse loves playing this game. Sometimes he gets pretty wound up.

Introducing Solids

2011-07-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

We decided to wait until the six month mark to start Jesse on solid foods, so about a week and a half ago, Jesse got to try his first "real" food. I've been excited about this milestone for a while now because 1) I love food, 2) I love cooking and have been looking forward to making my own baby food, and 3) I've been really curious how Jesse will respond to solids. I will say that starting solids was a little anti-climactic, though. For some reason, I was expecting Jesse to embrace his first spoonful of rice cereal, but he actually eyed it somewhat smugly and refused to open his mouth for it. When we finally got a little bit into his mouth, he looked like we had just done something awful to him.

The first three or four days we gave him brown rice cereal and then the past several days I have given him some sweet potatoes. Until today, he basically showed no interest and I had to nearly pry his mouth open if I wanted to get anything in him. I was expecting the same response today, but he opened up his own mouth for the first bite, and for several bites after that. Then he was no longer interested, and even though he would open his mouth, he would just blow it all right back out, causing it to splatter all over his high chair. Even though he still looked somewhat baffled by the food in his mouth today, he swallowed it well and gladly accepted more, and he didn't really seem to thrust any of it back out (except for when he started to play with it), so that was good.

We've also introduced the sippy cup now that he's begun eating solids. I don't think he gets very much out of it, but he knows what to do with it, and he especially seems to like the water on hot days like today. This afternoon we walked over to Sonic for Happy Hour and Jesse really liked sipping on some water when we got back inside from the heat.

Six Months

2011-07-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago Jesse reached the big six-month mark. He no longer feels like a little baby to us. Each month I think to myself, "This stage he is at is the best...I don't think it could get any better than this". And each time I am wrong, because each new month proves to be more fun and exciting than the last. Here's what Jesse is up to at six months:

He is sitting up really well. I still surround him with pillows just to be safe, but he rarely falls over. He really loves sitting up and being able to select the toys he wants to play with (or rather, chew on). He is noticeably more content by himself now that he can sit up.
He can get up on his hands and knees for maybe a couple seconds, and will scoot around the living room like this.
We noticed his first tooth coming in a week ago, and the second one is now visible, too. Thus, he wants to chew on EVERYthing in his reach. Our hands, our legs, strangers' fingers, high chairs and tables at restaurants (yuck!), keys, and of course, all his toys. Unfortunately, the teething process does seem to be causing him quite a bit of pain. We had three pretty awful nights this past week, where he seemed to wake up constantly for much of the night. We couldn't get him to settle back down, which is unusual for him. We must be pretty dense parents, because after three nights of this, it finally hit us that his teeth were probably the culprit. We gave him some Tylenol the next night before bed, and we didn't hear a peep out of him until 5 a.m. Tylenol works wonders! I also got him some teething tablets to use during the day and in the middle of the night if he wakes up, and those seems to be helpful, too.
He still loves his books. They kept him happy many a time on the long ride down to Houston. His favorite now is probably "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and he never fails to smile at the goldfish. We've been going to the library and checking out lots of board books for him so that we aren't reading the same ones over and over and over again.
He still loves being sung to, as well, and he especially likes songs with motions, like the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Where in Thumbkin?". I can also turn on "Wheels on the Bus" in the car if he starts to get fussy, and he immediately stops crying.
Bedtime these days is anywhere between 6 and 6:30. He really can't make it any later than that without being super cranky. He usually wakes in the morning between 6 and 6:30, although this past week it has been earlier because I think his mouth is in pain and the medicine is wearing off.
He's still taking three naps a day, but I can tell that he is getting better at stretching the time between his naps. Right now, two of those naps are fairly short (45 minutes) and one (either the second or third nap) is longer (anywhere from an hour and 15 minutes to two or two and a half hours).
He's become quite a babbler and says lots of "ma ma" and "da da" and "ba ba", although I know he doesn't yet associate any meaning with those sounds.

At his six month check-up he weighed in at 19 pounds, 12 ounces (90th percentile) and measured 27.5 inches (also 90th percentile). He's still a big boy, but his growth is slowing down a little bit, which is good news, because we are starting to feel a bit decrepit around here from hauling around all that weight.

I'll end this post with a confession: I think I may have officially qualified for the bad Mom of the year award this past week. Wednesday morning I sat Jesse way back in the corner of the couch and sat down right next to him. As I proceeded to check my e-mail, I looked away and next thing I knew I heard a very loud THUD and Jesse had landed on the floor in front of the couch. He must have basically somersaulted off, because of where his head landed. I felt SO BAD. He cried a little, but I honestly was shocked that he didn't cry anymore than he did. I called James freaking out and he came up from downstairs, but by the time he got here, Jesse was all smiles and giggles. Let's just say that I learned my lesson, and won't be taking my eyes off of him for even a second now. It could have been much worse than it was.

A Day at the Beach

2011-07-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

On Friday we drove down to Houston with James' parents to visit Katie, Jeremy and Benjamin. Lisa and her boyfriend Steve also met us down here, but they drove separately since Lisa had to be back earlier for summer school. Saturday morning we got up early and drove about two hours south to Surfside Beach. It was fun to see the two babies' reactions to the ocean. Since it was so incredibly hot, we only stayed a couple hours, but it was just enough time to take a dip in the water and enjoy the beach from underneath the beach umbrellas. Jesse had just fallen asleep as soon as we pulled up to the beach's parking lot, so he was a little bit foggy when we first arrived. His initial reaction looked a little apathetic, like this:

I think the combination of sleepiness and the intense heat was just too much for Jesse. He looked so lethargic laying on the beach mat, that he didn't even gripe about laying on his tummy for so long. He did seem to (somewhat) enjoy playing in the water a little bit, though.

Jesse crashed again once we got out of the water. He usually doesn't like cuddling like this, but he was so worn-out that he didn't complain.

Funny Moments

2011-06-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

Jesse has found himself in some interesting situations lately:

1) This is how I found him after a nap on Thursday.

He has begun rolling over in his crib, which means more interrupted sleep for us these days, because he rolls over onto his tummy and gets really upset. Last night he slept great, but Thursday night we got up nearly 10 times between the two of us to turn him back over so that he'd stop crying. Unfortunately he has only performed the tummy-to-back roll twice, so he's not so wonderful at getting himself turned back over. And of course, sometimes he just gets plain stuck, like you can see from the picture above.

2) Here he is this morning under his play gym. I think I had to fix it for him five times because he kept knocking it over with his legs.

First Father's Day

2011-06-20T19:10:00.000-07:00

We had such a great day Sunday celebrating Father's Day. My treat for James was supposed to be a trip to Rick's Bakery, but we were welcomed by an empty parking lot and a sign that says they are closed on Sundays (this is our second failed attempt to eat at Rick's--they are also closed on Memorial Day we found out). We went to Panera instead, and it was fun to sit outside there and enjoy our pastries and coffee, and Jesse was pretty content until the very end. Then we went back home and got ready for church and snapped some pictures outside before leaving.

Church was a little different than usual, because we were signed up for nursery duty, which meant being in the newborn room during the service. It turned out that besides Jesse, there was only one other child, so we got it pretty easy. That also meant that we were there to make sure Jesse got his nap, which helped him to be in a good mood that afternoon.

After church we ate lunch with my parents. Jesse got a little fussy at the end of the meal, so my Mom put him on a blanket and entertained him on the floor, and he surprised us all by rolling over from his back to his tummy. Of course, my Mom was the only one who saw the whole thing. I only saw the very end of the roll, and my Dad and James didn't see anything. Later that evening my parents watched Jesse while we went to help out with VBS, and he rolled over three more times! He decided today that he would allow me to see him roll over, and I think he is quite proud of his new trick.

I am so thankful for the wonderful Daddy that James is to Jesse. He is so good at playing with Jesse and taking care of him. We've really been trying to enjoy this time we have here in Fayetteville before James begins grad school in the fall, because I know that his life is going to get much busier with all the demands of school. Most Dads don't work so close to home that they get to see their kids at lunch everyday, and we are trying not to take that for granted right now. I'm also grateful for my own Dad and the influence that he has had on my life, as well as the love that he has for Jesse. Becoming a parent has definitely given me a new appreciation for my own parents and all they did for me as I grew up. Enjoy the pictures from our photo shoot...it seems that Jesse hasn't quite figured out the whole looking at the camera thing. In this case, I think the yard was really distracting to him.

Five Months

2011-06-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

I can't believe Jesse is already 5 months (and two days) old! It seems like he is changing so very quickly right now. For one, he's still getting bigger and longer. I don't feel like his growth has been slowing down yet, but it should pretty soon. At least, that's what I've been told. Unfortunately I haven't been really good about taking pictures each month to make comparisons, but I do have two pictures of Jesse on the same blanket, one today and one at almost exactly one month, so I thought it would be fun to show how much he's grown since then. I realize that you can't see all of the blanket in today's picture, but it still gives an idea.

I have a feeling Jesse's about to conquer some big things in the near future. We've been suspecting it for a little while, because his sleeping at night hasn't quite been what it used to be, which I've heard can happen when babies are trying to master a new trick. It started with him waking up around 4 a.m. and just making happy sounds for 10-15 minutes and then going back to sleep. We never had to get up because he never got upset, so this was more cute than it was annoying. In the past several weeks, though, he has begun "waking up" anywhere from 1-4 times a night (although last night he slept through with no problem). I say "waking up" because he doesn't actually seem to be awake (we are really the only ones who are waking up). His eyes are almost always closed and he is just screaming, arms and legs flailing and sometimes he is up on his side with his back arched and neck bent back like he is trying to turn over. We (actually, it's James about 80% of the time) go in there, put his pacifier back in, put our hand on his chest, and he stops crying.

Yesterday and today Jesse was able to stay in the sitting position by himself for about 5-10 seconds. It'll still probably be a while until he's good enough that we can safely leave him by himself, but it's exciting, because I think he'll like the new view. I was a little surprised because he is still quite top-heavy in his bumbo seat (well, technically ours is a bebepod, but no one knows it by that name) and always seems to lean to one side or another in it.

Home #6

2011-06-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

In September we will move into our sixth residence as a married couple, and this doesn't include all the times we've lived with parents during transitions. Whew! That's a lot of moving!

This past week we were assigned an apartment through graduate student housing, and I thought I'd share some pictures of our new abode. We don't have pictures of the inside yet, but here's the outside of our building, the playground, and the "tot lot" (a fun indoor play room for kids that I'm sure Jesse will love, especially in those cold winter months when he won't be able to play outside much).

Lots of people have been asking us if we're really excited about moving, and we definitely are, but we both feel really content where we are right now, here in Fayetteville. It's funny, because with all our other moves we have always grown impatient waiting to get on to the next stage. When we were living in Fayetteville and still in college, we were impatient to graduate and move to Dallas and begin our training for Wycliffe. When we were in Dallas we eventually got impatient to be back in Fayetteville so that we could finish raising support to head overseas, and then when we were back in Fayetteville, we wanted so badly to be in Bulgaria. Then when we were in Bulgaria we realized how good we had it back home; we faced lots of hard things like culture shock, not being able to communicate like we could back home, and ultimately realizing that Bulgaria wasn't where we needed to be long-term.

Even though it took a huge step of faith to come back home, not knowing what was next, it's been cool to see God putting together all the pieces for us. If you had asked us where we would be right now this time last year, we never would have guessed any of this.

I'm sure that as the time draws nearer for us to move I will grow more and more excited, but for now I am trying to make the most of the time left here in Fayetteville, because I know how much I'll miss the family and friends we have here once we leave.

Memorial Day Weekend

2011-06-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

I already blogged about our outing to Devil's Den this past weekend, but we had some other exciting events, too.

Jesse got to meet my friend Allison for the first time, since she was in town for the weekend. He wasn't being super cooperative for our picture. I think he had a meltdown right after this one was taken.

We also took Jesse for his first "swim" on Monday. He took to it pretty well, considering how cold the water was. It didn't seem to bother him at first, but once his belly got wet he wasn't very happy. I hope that once the water warms up a bit he will enjoy it a lot more. I'm also looking forward to taking a water babies class with him later in the summer, which should be lots of fun.

Moo Baa La La La: Part 2

2011-05-30T07:09:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned earlier, Jesse LOVES the book "Moo Baa La La La". Well, the morning after I wrote the last post about this book, I put Jesse on his tummy and put the book out in front of him, and before I knew it he grinned at the book and effortlessly rolled over onto his back. He had been working on rolling over for a while, and I have to say it was a little anti-climatic when it happened, because he did it so quickly and without any struggle.

Anyway, all of that is to say that he really still loves this book. It apparently inspires him to do new things (like roll over) and it can even reverse a bad mood. He was getting a little fussy this past Saturday afternoon, but it continually calmed him down. Here's a little video to prove this. You should feel very privileged (please note my sarcasm here) that I am sharing this video with you. I usually detest showing up in videos, especially ones that involve me making animal noises, but you can just ignore me and focus on Jesse. :)

Ticklish Feet

2011-05-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

Either James' beard tickles Jesse's feet or it just really makes him laugh...

The Great Outdoors

2011-05-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

I've almost always liked being outdoors, but I think I enjoy it way more now that we have Jesse. Going on a hike is great fun for the whole family and usually means that Jesse is a pretty content little dude. Today we decided to pack a lunch and take a day trip out to Devil's Den, one of our favorite spots around here. After incredible amounts of rain lately, it was wonderful to have some warm, sunny weather today.

We arrived at the park around 11:00 this morning and hiked the Devil's Den Trail before we ate lunch. Jesse enjoyed the new sights and sounds and seemed to really enjoy being in the Baby Bjorn.

We called Jesse "our little forest ranger" today. He was also "our little bug catcher". If you look up close on his shirt in some of the pictures, you can see that he is an official member of the bug catcher's club. ;)

We enjoyed seeing lots of beautiful waterfalls, thanks to the amazing amounts of rain we've experienced this spring. Jesse didn't even mind getting some cold water dribbled on his head; it probably felt really good in the hot, muggy weather.

Just to prove I was on the trip, too, here are a few pictures of me and Jesse. After lunch was the only point when he got really fussy, and it was right before he fell asleep. This was one of those times where he was obviously just extremely exhausted. He had a full belly, a clean diaper, and singing to him didn't help...he just needed sleep and he needed it bad. I will admit, though, that I think his crying face is pretty cute. It's hard to get annoyed.

After lunch we took a short hike alongside Lee Creek before heading back. The plan was to time it so that Jesse could take a good nap on the ride back home, but as you can see, he had different plans.

Not surprisingly, we also stumbled upon some pretty extensive flood damage along Lee Creek.

It was a great day, and I'm looking forward to more beautiful days like this!

Bilabial Trills

2011-05-22T17:48:00.000-07:00

Recently Jesse has begun making lots of bilabial trills (basically a vibrating 'b' sound). It's not unusual for me to lay him down for a nap, only to hear him wake up 5 minutes later working on this sound. It must be really fascinating for him. And sometimes it takes lots of spit to make this sound, as you can see from the video. Can you tell he's the son of a linguist?

Moo Baa La La La!

2011-05-19T17:19:00.000-07:00

How do you convince your baby who hates tummy time to stay content on his tummy just a little bit longer? You bribe him with his favorite book. You put it in front of his face and read it over and over and over again until he loses interest and realizes that he still doesn't like to be on his tummy.

Jesse has recently really taken a liking to the book "Moo Baa La La La". It's hilarious because he almost always smiles as soon as we open up the book to the title page before we even begin reading. Something about that title page really makes him happy; it seems like a boring page compared to the actual pages of the book, but maybe it's all the anticipation of what is to come. :) He also very predictably smiles when it says "some other dogs go bow wow wow and cats and kittens say meow". He might occasionally smile at other books, but this one always gets huge grins. He absolutely LOVES it!

Here are some other pictures from today. I did a little photo shoot with him because I realized I've been a slacker and haven't taken enough pictures lately. He was happy for the entire time I was taking pictures (probably liked all the attention), but wouldn't give me good smiles when I had the camera up to my face. Oh well.

Today he stayed in his seat longer than usual, but after a couple minutes he gets pretty wobbly and upset.

Hangin' out on the couch after dinner: