grampa

is the bestest!!

the little dude has one major budah belly going on! must be from grampa's expert bottling skills!

so big!

grammie came over to visit and i snapped this one of the dude STANDING with almost no support!!! little dude has learned to lean on his belly and stand up on his own. how did this happen?!

even mojo can't figure it out!!

:)

sippy cup

so today was the dude's first experience with a sippy cup. i've been wanting to give him the option of drinking water with dinner for awhile, and since grana and grampa bought his first sippy cup and they are in town...i thought what better day than today!

i think he may have gotten a couple sips, but mainly he was interested in rubbing his gums on the sippy part! silly dude!

blocks

who knew that blocks could be so fun. well and when 'melissa and doug' make such colorful and silly ones, who can resist!! i mean who wouldn't love a block with a turtle wearing a tie while sticking his tongue out! :) the whole set of blocks is 3' high, but daddy just stacked some of them. enough to capture the attention of our little dude.

and can i just mention how proud we are of our little dude. he is sitting up all on his own for LONG periods of time now. he'll teeter back and forth sometimes and he uses his balance to catch himself. we even got a comment from one of the teachers at school that she was surprised to hear how young he was and how well he did sitting up. go dude!!

shutter bug

so it turns out the little dude is a little shutter bug. take the camera out and point it at him and he comes to life!!!



i call this collage our 'ode to blue steel!'
(zoolander with ben stiller....great movie!)

first mother's day

wow! today is my first of many mother's day. such a special day for me. i love my son. i love my husband. i love being a mom. it's funny how you don't realize how incomplete you are before having a child of your own. now that the dude is in my life i have something to really live for.

you don't care that you've only had 4 hours of sleep. seeing his face first thing in the morning is priceless and makes everything else disappear. you don't care if you've had a bad day at home, work, etc. the minute you walk into that room and you see your baby smile ear to ear at you, your heart melts. the things you thought would gross you out (throw up, blowouts, etc) now make you laugh. and your day seems to be consumed with poop....and that's okay!

i will do everything in my power to do the best for him and hope that someday he'll do the same for his family. i can't wait to watch you grow up into a little man (not too quickly though!!) of your own.



i love you dude.

pre-mothers day celebration

thank you to miss amber and mr bruce for hosting a little pre-mothers day cookout. i think it's safe to say everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves! these pics were snapped shortly after we walked back to the murrays. as you can see, the kids were WORN out!!



and it was one big sleepover since miss jodi, mojo, grady, myself and the dude spent the night. so great! mojo enjoyed sleeping with criostoir and bella, and then migrated to miss jodi's bed with yoda.

big boy

i had been hearing from school how all the teachers were impressed that the little dude held his bottle by himself (not propped up on a blanket or anything), but i had never seen it until...today! having him reclined in his high chair he was able to easily hold onto his bottle and feed himself. my goodness...where did my helpless little baby go?! :)

such a big boy now!

sweet potatoes

today was the dude's first taste of 'real food!' we decided to start with sweet potatoes. i mean who doesn't love sweet potatoes (besides grady!)!! seems like the dude loves them just as much as mommy!

and thank you thank you thank you to miss meena and mrs. khalili for the AWESOME babycook steamer/blender! it was SO easy to make these sweet potatoes for the dude and i felt so good giving it to him knowing that there was nothing but good ol veggies in there.

good sippings!

i can't believe it's been 6 months since i've seen jenn! such a change from our weekly pilates class and wegman's dinner routine when we were both pregnant! it was definitely time for us to all hang out and meet the new little dude and dudette, so we all met up at breaux vinyards. the adults enjoyed a nice wine tasting (11 wines!!) and then it was off to the lawn where we enjoyed
our packed lunches.

it was so cute to get graham and vivi together. i think they enjoyed themselves....as much as 4 and 6 month old babies can! soon graham will be able to play with owen!

we had such a good time though. it was nice to just get out and relax. all the kids were good, and the weather couldn't have been better. maybe the weather was too nice...graham got his first little sunburn on his cheeks. first mom flaw....forgot the sunscreen. so guess what i'll be buying at target!!!

6 month stats

holey moley...the due is GrOwInG!!!

weight: 17lb 4oz (43%)

height: 25.5" (15%)

head circumference: 18.5" (drum roll pleeeeeeeeeeeeease......99%!!!!!)

dude has a BIG head! :)

nothing to be worried about (i already asked the doc). he has a feeling his head growth will plateau and we'll see that at his 9 month well visit. guess we'll wait and see!

graham did super well at his visit today though. no stranger anxiety, he impressed dr. bill with his tummy time strength, he was reaching out for all the cool toys dr. bill had, and he only cried for a little bit after he got his shots. he's one tough dude!

bwwwwwwwwwwwap

someone has a new trick!

happy easter!

happy easter!!

we spent the day relaxing, laying around and playing! we hope everyone enjoyed their day as well. a special thank you to the best neighbor ever too, miss stef, who made the cutest easter basket for the dude. he LOVED it!

playtime

to round out the evening, we had the clay's over for dinner. the boys thoroughly enjoyed playing with each other. it's like they never left school!

happy half birthday!!!

holey moley! the little dude is six months old!!! how did this happen? i swear it was only yesterday that we were getting everything packed and ready for him to be born. not only is time going by quickly, it's going by in what seems to be time warp speed! happy half birthday dude! we love you so much!!

we don't go in for your 6 month well visit until next week, so the stats will have to wait until then. but here's what you've been up to lately:

- wearing size 3 diapers

- wearing mostly 6-9 month clothes now

- sleeping between 9.5-10 hours at night (YEAH!)

- have LOTS more hair than last month. it seems to be growing in blonde too. i think we're going to have a toehead on our hands!

- eyes are still blue, with maybe a hint of green in the center. we'll see if they change!

- had your first fever and ear infection (boo!)

- eating cereal twice a day. he seems to really like oatmeal over rice and barley.

- able to sit up on your own and have become more of a fan of playing on your tummy

- sitting on the 'big boy' side of the bathtub (that would be the non-reclining side)

- have started to giggle from being tickled or from hearing a favorite word

- colored our first set of easter eggs

- HUGE fan of the bouncy chair!