Week 28

Sept 15-22

Jack has had a few firsts this week.  Early on in the week he had his 6 month check-up at the doctor's office.  He had to get 3 shots, but he did very well with them.  Also, some big news is that he almost weighs 20 pounds!  Big boy!  He was 85th percentile for his height and 75th percentile for his weight.

The day after his shots he was a little grumpy and I figured it was because his legs were sore, but then I noticed that he kept smacking his gums together.  After I saw him do this a few times I checked his little gums and sure enough, a teeny white dot....FIRST TOOTH!!  We are now watching it every day to see what happens.  Most of the time he is completely fine, but every once in awhile it will bother him.  He likes to chew on things to help with the pain.  Those teethers that we keep in the freezer are awesome.  Occasionally if it is bothering him before bed I will give him a little bit of Tylenol.

Jack went swinging for the first time this week. I guess I just never thought about putting him in a swing b/c until recently he didn't sit up by himself and I worried about his neck. Well I put him in one of those baby swings by himself and he absolutely loved it!! We were out on a play date with some other moms and babies and I figured...lets try it! Here are some pictures of him in action!

After the big party last weekend we decided that we are going to make a lifestyle change.  Ed and I started making better choices about what we eat, and how we spend our time.  We are eating more fresh fruits and veggies along with lean proteins. We also have been going running together...for me it's more like a walk/run, but I am improving.  It's hard to work out when you haven't gone running in over a year. I am trying to lose 20 pounds and I think Ed is going for around the same thing.  I will keep you posted on how much weight we end up losing.  Jack loves going "running" b/c he gets to lay back and relax in the jogging stroller.  Here is a picture of him after a run.

He literally sits like this the whole time...arms back, body in a reclined position.  He kind of zones out and sometimes I wonder if he nods off b/c he looks like he's asleep. 

Week 27

Sept 9-15

This week we celebrated Ed's 30th Birthday on Saturday, September 12.  I took the weekend off of work and organized a SURPRISE PARTY for him!!  I had been planning for months and I was sooo excited about it.  Unfortunately, Ed found out about his party before I had the chance to pull it off...BUT he had  no idea about half of the surprise guests I had in store for him.  We have such awesome friends and family.  Many of them traveled all the way from South Carolina!  :)  Thank you to everyone who came to the party, we had a great time!

Thank you to Peeps for manning the grill for me!  I could have NEVER done it without you man!  :)  You are definitely the GRILLMASTER!  Thank you to Tyson, Garner, & Garcia for letting Andy, Chuck, & Daniel stay over at your house Friday night so that Ed wouldn't know they were in town.  Thank you to Ryan & Amanda for using your sky miles to fly down to see us!  Thank you to Harvin & Cindy for surprising us by driving down for the weekend, helping with Jack, and getting us a new recliner for the living room! 

We have the best friends in the entire world and we are very grateful!!!!

So the party pretty much consisted of friends, food, and beer.  I got a keg of one of Ed's favorite beers...Yuengling.  :)  It was good!  Between all of the Navy guys, Ed, myself, our friends, etc.  We pretty much drained the nearly the whole thing.  Money well spent! 

All in all, I would say the party was a success!  Here are some pictures of everyone!

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Week 26

Sept 2-8

Hello friends!  So it seems like Jack is just growing and growing everyday.  Not only is he meeting so many new physical milestones...but his little personality and ego are also growing.  He has grown quite a little attitude lately.  It's funny because up until recently he really didn't seem to know what was going on...whatever we did he would just go along with it.  Of course if he was tired or hungry he would let us know, but other than that if he was holding something and you took it away he wouldn't really seem to notice.  This is not the case anymore.  Now he seems to know what he wants, and if he doesn't get it...he will let you know how unhappy he is about it.  Here is a video that illustrates this new little attitude perfectly.  Jack is obsessed with the remote for the TV and he will stop at nothing to try and get it so he can eat it. Everything goes in his mouth...everything. 


He sits up ALL the time now.  If he's not sitting up he gets frustrated.  He LOVES to play with his toys.  Ed made yet another trip to Toys R Us with Jack while I worked last week and got him not 1, not 2, but 3 new toys.  Jack LOVES his new toys!!  Hopefully we are not spoiling him too much.  One of the toys he got is this puppy and you can hook it up to the computer and program it to say his name.  Then you can pick from a bunch of different songs and customize which ones it will sing.  If you get tired of them you can just plug it in again and change the songs out.  He loves it when the puppy says his name.  :)  Good pick Daddy!

Week 25

Aug 25-Sept 1

The first thing I want to report is....DADDY IS HOME!!  YAY!  Daddy arrived home Sunday morning at 2:00am.  I'm not complaining about that though, b/c at least he was available the next day to watch Jack while I went to work.  Thank you, thank you to Jessa for watching Jack while he was gone.  For those of you who don't know, Jessa is one of our neighbors and her husband Paul works with Ed.  Yay for military family to be there when your family is far away.  I don't know what I would have done without her.  Honestly I can't imagine dropping him off at daycare.  Now I know a lot of you probably use daycare and yours is probably fabulous and wonderful.  Maybe we are spoiled, but I just can't seem to let myself put him in daycare. 

We are very lucky that I do work weekends and Ed pretty much watches him the whole weekend.  We have a new babysitter, Rachel who is going to be watching Jack on Friday mornings for us until Ed gets home from work.  I'm sure she is going to be fantastic. 

So we do have some firsts to report for this week.  Jack has now progressed from "tripod sitting" (where he would sit up, but grab his feet to balance) to sitting up and playing.  He prefers to sit up and play with his toys and if you try to put him on his stomach he gets mad.  He can balance just fine and grabs things with both hands to play with them.  We also retired the wonderful "hammock" piece to the bath that we have used since he was born to "big boy" baths where he sits up.  I had some toys that Amanda put on my "diaper cake" when I had my Wolfson Hospital baby shower and I pulled those out for him to play with during bathtime.  He LOVES them!! 

Another new skill that he just started the other day is getting up on all fours.  Ed is convinced that Jack is so advanced he will start crawling way before most other babies.  He helps him get on all fours and at first I just kind of laughed at the idea, but Jack supports himself and also rocks.  It's like he knows it's something new and he tries to take off.  Maybe Ed is right...we are already preparing to babyproof the house.  Jack has so much energy, he is going to be a handful when he becomes mobile. 

Other random growth/development milestones.  Jack is still eating baby foods and has pretty much mastered all of the Stage 1's.  He especially loves fruit, but he does eat his vegetables.  Ed refuses to feed him peas though, b/c he is convinced that he hates them.  I volunteer to be the mean one and I make him eat them.  He really doesn't mind them that much, just not as eager as when he has apples or bananas.  He does make the funniest faces...

He loves to eat (can you tell by the pictures?), and has a pretty solid eating schedule for the day.  He has his 3 main meals a day and then takes bottles in between.  Wakes up-6 oz. bottle, breakfast-6 oz. bottle + cereal + 1/2 jar fruit, lunch-6 oz. bottle + cereal + 1/2 jar of fruit, afternoon-6 oz. bottle, dinner-6 oz. bottle + cereal + 1/2 jar of veggies, late evening-6 oz. bottle.  That's pretty much his daily food intake.  He has been sleeping 8-9 hours through the night.  He's an early riser.  He goes to bed around 7:30-8:00 and sleeps until around 4:30-5:00 where he will wake up and take his early bottle and then go back to sleep until around 7:00.  It is quite nice compared to those early months.

We are really settling in as a family.  It is easy again to go through our days.  Ed and I pretty much fight over who gets to go get Jack when he wakes from a nap.  We play with him constantly, but also let him have some time to be independent.  Since one of us has him while the other works, we each get 1 on 1 time with him.  The times we actually get to be together as a family we really cherish, since we're both always working.  I think that going back to work was somewhat of a blessing b/c it gives the boys a chance to hang out together and it also gives me a break.  Whenever I get my 4 days off for the week I can't wait to play with Jack.

Well after a ton of rambling I am done with this post.  I wanted to get it in tonight b/c I have the next 4 days in a row of work.  For those of you who are thinking "big deal, she works 3 days a week"....they are 14+ hour days so they are a little bit exhausting.  I am not complaining though, b/c I am grateful to continue my career and contribute to the income.  :) 

Here is another picture.  Ed thought it was funny to put a Darth Vador helmet on Jack.  I can't believe I am even putting this up on the internet.  I did think it was cute b/c Ed is giving the "thumbs up" and it looks like Jack is too.  Here you go!