James - Five Months!

This little smile-y boy was five months old as of five days ago.

My FAVORITE, FAVORITE thing is how ticklish he is.  You barely have to touch his tummy and he just starts giggling.  Sometimes just swaddling him at night is enough to set him off and he just goes to laughing.  Big, deep belly laughs.  And I just sit there laughing at him laughing because it's SO FUN!

His laugh and his voice are so deep already, and he loves carrying on conversations.  We sit on the couch, and I tell him all sorts of things, and he responds with deep little coos and yells and giggles.

As you can see in the first picture, he's trying hard to sit up.  When he lays in his lounger, he can pull himself up to sitting, but when I set him on the floor, he lasts about one second before flopping over.

He's teething something fierce.  No teeth yet.  But drool everywhere.  Grabs my hands and chews on my fingers whenever he gets the chance.  Takes his paci out of his mouth and then chews on the sides of it instead of using it properly.  I just ordered him a bunch of teething toys; they should be here soon!

This past month, his biggest milestone is that he started eating food!  We've done sweet potatoes, bananas, avocados, apples, and carrots.  Bananas are BY FAR his favorite.  I know because they're the only one he willingly opens his mouth for!  Everything else I have to trick him into.  Usually I do something to make him laugh and then shove the spoon of food in when his mouth opens!  Haha!

He's still a mama's baby!  People always act like it must be a hassle or annoying that he wants ME and only ME.  Um, no.  There will come a day when I'm not the number one person in his life.  You better believe I'm enjoying right now when I am!

James - Four Months Old

He's smiling at Ila in this picture.  You can see her hand in the bottom right corner.

Broken record alert - but really... how is my newborn four months old?

And also... what did our family ever do without him?  How did I think we were complete?

At four months old, James can roll from his belly to his back like a pro.  He did it for the very first time back when he was a month old, but after a few times, he didn't do it again until this past month.  Now he does it pretty much as soon as I set him down for tummy time.  So I place him on his boppy pillow a lot to keep him from rolling and to make sure he's getting plenty of tummy time in.

Two days ago, I saw him try to roll from his back to his belly for the first time.  He came SO CLOSE but he just couldn't. quite. get. it. alllll the way.  Which greatly angered him!  He tried two times.  Both times he was all happy and cooing and trying to flip over.  And both times he made it to his side and then couldn't make it any further.  And in a split second he went from happy and cooing to pissed off and screaming his little head off!

He goes from happy to angry in a split second a lot, and it never ceases to amaze me at how quickly his mood can change!  haha!

He can pick up toys now and put them in his mouth.  He has also figured out how to pull his pacifier out of his mouth, but he can't figure out how to put it back in.  Which is pretty annoying.

He's usually down for the night now around eight and sleeps all night (almost) every night.  He's the one who started putting himself down around eight.  Before, I didn't swaddle him and put him in his bed for the night until closer to ten, when I went to sleep.  But he started getting fussy at night and the only thing that made him happy was to be swaddled and put to bed!

His legs are strong.  STRONG!  He tries to stand already when I hold him up, and I can't put him in his nap nanny anymore unless I'm right there watching because he can use his legs to push himself all the way up to the top to where he almost falls out of it head first!

I can't wait to see what this next month holds!

Ila's 3rd Birthday Party

Ila's birthday isn't until October 10th, but we had her party yesterday.

She wanted two things - gymnastics and Bubble Guppies.

Y'all, my child is obsessed with Bubble Guppies.  OBSESSED!  Last year, I thought she loved Elmo.  But her feelings for Elmo were nothing compared to her love for the bubble guppies.  She sings the songs.  She's up dancing during the show.  She talks about the characters like they are her friends.  And actually she told me one time that her best friends are Willow (her cousin) and Molly (a bubble guppy).  She has episodes memorized and when one of her favorite parts is coming up, she will pause the tv and yell at me to come watch the part with her.  (She also watches me while I watch to make sure I'm actually watching and have the appropriate reaction.)  Bubble Guppies is her life!

So a Bubble Guppies/gymnastics party she got! :)

I actually had MY 3rd birthday party at the exact same gym where we had Ila's yesterday!  I love, love, love it, and Eden and Ila think it's really neat too!

Here are some (blurry) pictures from Ila's party:

 She wanted to sleep with this Molly balloon tonight, so it's currently floating at the bottom of her bed.

 I spent ten years of my life at this gym.  I couldn't resist testing out my skills.  Verdict: not so good anymore!  haha!

I think it's safe to say she had a wonderful party.  She ran, she jumped, she flipped, she swung, she spun, she twirled.  She ran around the whole time with a giant smile on her face.

Today we opened all of her presents, and she got so much good stuff!  She was beyond thrilled to receive stuffed bubble guppies, and I have a feeling they will now be going everywhere with us.  Dustin was gone today, but Eden, Ila, and I had a blast playing with all of Ila's new things!  We sang with the toy microphone stand, put lots of money in her dinosaur piggy bank, chased Mr. Bucket around and around our house, read some new books...  Ila is truly the happiest little thing, but James has definitely put a damper on the amount of attention she gets.  I loved seeing how special she felt the past two days.  Thank you to everybody who came to her party and gave her presents and made her feel oh so loved!  We love you right back!

A Few Life Updates and James' Baptism

Eden currently has bronchitis.  And because of that and everything else that's happened lately, she is having the hardest time permanently adjusting to kindergarten!  So far her kindergarten year has looked like this:

The first week of school was a half week, and she went.

The second week of school was a full week, and she went.

Then they had a week off because of Harvey.

She went to school the fourth week.

Then she got sick and missed Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of the fifth week.

And now this week, the sixth week, she missed Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

I had a cold a few days prior to Eden getting sick and got over it quickly, so when she got sick, I just figured she got my cold and would be okay in a couple of days.  When hers lingered a little bit longer than mine did, I took her to an urgent care nearby.  I was still assuming it was just a cold and didn't think I needed to drive the hour to her pediatrician just for that, but since she was taking a while to get over hers, I thought I would get her checked out.  The doctor at the urgent care looked at her for about three seconds, told me she had a cold, and gave me a prescription for steroids.  At first she seemed to get better, and since she wasn't running fever anymore, I sent her back to school for a few days.  But she went wayyyy downhill, got super weak, lost her appetite, and started losing weight.  So earlier this week, we went to see her pediatrician who, after an X-ray, diagnosed her with bronchitis and was furious that the other doctor would give a five year old steroids.  Lesson learned!  We will not be visiting that urgent care anytime soon and will head straight to the pediatrician when something is up!

So between the chaos of Harvey and Eden being sick the past two weeks, life has been anything but routine.  Eden has been on her antibiotics for two days now, and she's doing much, much better.  She actually ate dinner last night and breakfast this morning, and I've been forcing pediasure down her throat to try and get some meat back on her bones!  She loves her steam showers, I've been slathering essential oils on her chest, and she's been sleeping with the humidifier.  I'm praying that she bounces back quickly and that she is back to her old Eden self really soon!

Let's talk about James' Baptism now!  James was supposed to be baptized on August 26, 2017.  I had everything planned.  After the church service, everyone was going to go back to our shop for lunch.  Dustin was going to grill chicken and corn to be served with pasta salad.  I ordered and paid for four dozen petit fours.  I ordered all the flower arrangements for the church and for the tables at our shop.  I spent the Sunday before the Baptism cleaning and scrubbing the shop from top to bottom.  On the Tuesday before, my friend, Kim, helped me start setting up tables and decorations.  We knew at the beginning of that week that there was a tropical storm out there, but they were saying that it MIGHT turn into a Category 1.  So nobody was worried about it.  

And then the Thursday before his Baptism, everything changed.  And the storm intensified.  And everybody realized it was going to be a big freaking deal.  His Baptism was that Saturday, and they were saying that it was going to hit either Friday night or Saturday morning.  So I decided we were going to have to postpone.  My mom had to come from Beaumont, one of the Godparents from Pasadena, my grandma and aunt from Katy, my uncle from Austin... obviously I couldn't have all these people on the road during a hurricane!  I started trying to figure out another day to have him baptized.  I called my uncle (who is the one who baptized him), my mom and dad, the Godparents... The next weekend that worked for everybody was in NOVEMBER!

Meanwhile, Dustin was down in Matagorda helping friends board up their houses and getting our boat to bring home.   Cell service is scarce down there, so I couldn't even talk to him.

But I did not want to have to wait all the way until November for his Baptism!  His outfit wouldn't even fit by then!  So finally I called my dad and said, "Look... everything is ready to go for this weekend.  Uncle Al is free THIS weekend to baptize him.  I'm just going to have him do it tomorrow before the storm hits, and anybody who can make it can come, and if they can't make it tomorrow, well I'm sorry!  But we can't wait until November to baptize him!"

I went down the list of everybody we invited and informed them that the ceremony was now going to take place Friday evening before the hurricane hit so that everybody could get back home before the weather became too terribly bad.

Dustin got home late Thursday night.  Actually Friday morning because it was after midnight.  I informed him that the Baptism was now taking place that day.  We decided to not serve a meal after so that people would have more time to get home before the weather intensified.  We spent our morning bringing in every single chair, toy, potted plant, etc from outside.  Dustin went to the shop that afternoon and took down a few of my decorations and brought them to the church.  I called the florist and told her not to deliver the flowers to me after all, and we decided that she could take them all to a nursing home instead.

James Kyle was baptized on August 25th at 5pm.  When it was over, we ate petit fours and a blueberry cobbler in the annex of the church, and then everybody made it safely back home before Harvey hit Texas.

It isn't at all what we originally planned, but it was beautiful and perfect.  We welcomed James into the family of God, and God knew all along that it was going to happen on August 25th!

Here are some pictures:

 I set James up to take some pictures, and anytime I do that, Ila runs to go get her camera so she can "take pictures" too!

 my mom and Mark got him his outfit

 His Godparents, Andy and Kim, gave him this bracelet.  His initials are engraved on one side, and the (original) Baptismal date is engraved on the other.  Kim says it's all Andy's fault that we had to switch dates because after they had the bracelet engraved, Andy jinxed it by saying, "Well, I hope the date doesn't change!"

 my water from the River Jordan... Dustin, Eden, Ila, and James have all been baptized with this water now.

 had to get another picture of him once we put on his Baptism necklace from my Grandma Jan

 My brother up there (on the far left) is not a Godfather... (He is Eden's though)... but he stood in as proxy for Matt, James' Godfather who could not make it that evening.

 My Grandpa John's brother, Al, baptized James for us.  And it was so incredibly special.  He started out by saying, "It is such an honor for me to baptize my beloved brother John's great-grandson."  I immediately started crying.

haha!  James with (kinda) all his Godparents!

It really was the most perfect, special ceremony!

Also!  I tell Eden (and when they get older, I'll tell Ila and James too) about my Grandpa John all the time.  This was her first time meeting his brother.  When I introduced her to him, she jumped up into his arms and gave him the biggest hug.  It was so sweet!  Later my Uncle Al sent me a message, and in it he said, "What a joy it was to be greeted so lovingly by your little Eden!  I think I received the hug that Grandpa John would have gotten if he could have been there."

Thank you to those of you who came to celebrate our son with us and help welcome him into God's family.  And of course, we understand why some of you couldn't be there!  A big thank you to Uncle Al who made this Baptism even more special than it already would have been.  And a big thank you to Kim for helping me decorate... even though it turned out to be for nothing!  haha!  To all the Godparents - James is so blessed to have y'all in his life!  We love y'all!