Pre-Thanksgiving Feasts

With Thanksgiving coming up, Jacob had a couple of holiday themed parties this week. One at school where the whole school feasted together (the only time that they do this) and one with our playgroup. It is definitely the season for eating! Jacob also attended a birthday party for his friend Luke at the YMCA. He was so excited when he walked into the room since he recognized it as the place where he had taken a class last spring. He hit every spot in the place within the first 2 min. Luke came along for the ride on all 3 activities, and just like his normal self was happy to be there.

Jacob has grown a lot in the last few months (2+ inches in 4 months), but I think another big growth spurt is on the way as lately he has been eating a ton and eating constantly. I think he is eating more than me! Luke seems to be doing the same thing...eating a lot and often. He has been doing better at night lately (though not as good as 6 wks ago), but he still gets up to eat heartily at least once a night. We'll probably start solids in the next few weeks to help fill his belly and keep it filled longer than 2- 3 hours.

Daddy is on vacation this week, so we are looking forward to spending extra time as a family. After nearly a year of looking for a Wii, Daddy finally found one to purchase and it arrived this week. What a fun game! Jacob has already had a chance to try it out, though he much prefers watching Daddy play.

Go here for the rest of this week's pictures.

Tired Mommy=Foggy memory

I'm not sure why, but I'm having major recollection and writers block concerning the week. So, here is a basic recap. Luke rolled from his back to his belly last Wednesday for the first time. He hasn't done it since. The boys and I went to the zoo on Friday and had a great time. The weekend was spent doing some much needed work around the house. Sleep issues with Luke continue to plague our house. Rather than things getting better, they just seem to be getting worse. The pedi said that since he went from sleeping 8-9 hrs a night to drastically less, he may be ready for solids. Even though I'm not emotionally ready for my baby to be eating solid food. Even though I was hoping to wait until 6 months, I've decided I am giving him another 2 weeks and if we don't see improvement (it has been going on for nearly 4 weeks already) then we'll be starting on cereal and hoping for the best. In desperation some nights, we've gone to having him sleep in the swing (while off), which has worked great, but he's getting addicted! I don't want him to dislike sleeping in his crib. The boys continue to grow before our eyes. I am reminded everyday how blessed I am to be able to stay home and care for them and see them change and grow each day.

Here are the rest of this week's pictures.

Jacob shaking the tree

Jacob and Papa found this tree over the summer and it has been a source of laughter ever since.

Rolling

Yes, my little man has finally done it. After a week or two of getting from his back to his side, tonight Luke made it all the way to his stomach. I actually missed the first time he did it, but Jacob saw it. I was getting Jacob's dinner together (while keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't do anything to Luke) and he said "Mommy, Luke roll." Now, he has said this before after 'helping' Luke roll over. This time, I was able to see Jacob and he was nowhere near Luke (who I couldn't see). When I walked over, there was Luke, on his belly struggling to get his second hand out from under his belly. A little bit later, I actually saw him do it.

Of course, I had to double check my journal on Jacob to see when he rolled the first time. He was 4 months and 3 days old. Luke is 4 months and 5 days old. They each rolled from belly to back at the same 'age' as well. They are so different in so many ways, yet similar in others. Too cute.

Not much new...

In thinking back to our week, I'm not sure what we did. The normal stuff, of course, but nothing out of the ordinary. Except that we didn't have school on Tuesday because of the election. Thank goodness for early voting. Without school on that day, there was no way I would have been able to stand in line with the boys to vote. It would have been too hard.

We are enjoying the wonderful Houston 'fall' while trying not to get sick. Between colds, flus, and a nasty stomach bug floating around, we may not stay healthy all season, but hopefully it won't be terrible.

Luke is still waking up 2 times a night to eat and is also having trouble staying focused while eating in general during the day. Too much going on, especially when big brother is in the room. We brought out the sippee cup this week to help familiarize him with it. Since he won't take a bottle, I am hoping that he will learn to use the sippee in the next couple of months and we can use that for feedings away from me. We have decided to try and hold off on starting solids until he is closer to 6 months, but we'll have to play it by ear. He isn't showing the signs that he is interested in our food yet, but with the regression in nighttime feeding/sleeping habits, the doctor says he may be nearing his time. He is fully into the 3-6 month / 6 month clothes now. Jacob was just starting to wear the 3-6 month clothes at this point, whereas Luke may outgrown them before Christmas. We'll see. He is nearly 1 pound heavier than Jacob was at the same age. Poor kid - he gets compared to Jacob often in many ways. I'll just have to curb that urge to compare when it comes to the "important" things in life later on.

Jacob is doing great. He is now off his antibiotic and is full of energy. He is waking up before 6am everyday, but he is going down for naps and bed pretty well, so I guess I can't really complain. He's now singing more and more songs and asks me to sing with him often. Good thing he doesn't know I can't really sing! If you look through the pictures you will see a few of Jacob "reading on the potty." Those are pictures that were staged by David. Quite adorable, but not reality, unfortunately. We have the little potty in our bathroom, but there has been no potty training progress. He hasn't really shown the signs that he is ready yet, so we haven't pushed it. I know he won't go off to kindergarten in diapers, so I'm trying not to stress about it. In good time...

Go here for the rest of this week's pictures.

4 months old

Luke was 4 months old last Friday, and in celebration of the event had his 4 month checkup including shots. Lucky boy...

Anyways...he is doing great and met all of the milestone markers. He is 15lbs 13oz (75%), 24 3/4 inches tall (40%) and his head is 16.9cm (75%). For those of you who are like me and like to make comparisons, Jacob was 14lbs 14oz, 25 1/4 inches tall and his head was 16.6cm at 4 months. The percentages are what my doctor told me - if you look online at the different growth calculators, they all say something different. Things may even have changed at our doctor's office as far as what chart they use because Jacob has always had a 95-97% range for his head size. Luke's head is now bigger than Jacob's was at 4 months, but she said Luke is in the 75% range. Who knows....they are what they are.

New Cars

Jacob loves getting packages from Mia and Papa.

Luke's Baptism

As I mentioned before, Luke was baptized on Sunday at our church. The ceremony was performed by Father Sean Horrigan. The same priest who baptized Jacob 2 years ago and married David and me 5 years ago. I think it is really neat that we were able to have that connection in our sacraments.

We had nearly 30 people join us for the blessed occasion. Two of my aunts from New England, Kathy and Janet, came for the weekend. We really appreciated them taking the time to come as it was so nice to see them. We also were very happy to have several dear friends, and my aunt and cousin who live nearby, with us. Of course, my parents, siblings, neices, and nephew were here too.

After a simple, but beautiful ceremony, everyone came back to the house for a reception. David went above and beyond, once again, with the food preparation for the party. Everything looked great and tasted even better. To make the day even better - the weather was fantastic, so we were able to sit outside and visit for hours.

Thanks to my best friend, Margaret, for taking such fabulous pictures of the baptismal ceremony. Those pictures and the ones from the reception afterwards are here. For more pictures of the weekend (including dinner out on Saturday, the baptism, and reception), here are ones taken by my dad, and here are ones taken by Aunt Janet. Thank you to all of the photographers. Someday, Luke will also appreciate having such great documentation of the event.

Halloween

Though last year was Jacob's first time trick or treating, this year was really when he 'got it.' I talked about 'trick or treat' with Jacob for weeks leading up to Halloween night. So whenever I asked him what he was going to be for Halloween, he said "Trick or Treat!" He was very excited. We practiced what would transpire that night so he would be ready. And boy was he ready. He didn't know anything about treats last year (which is what we call any sweet thing around our house), so when he got any in his pumpkin, it wasn't much of a thrill. This year, however, he was ecstatic with each treat placed in his pumpkin. He had to show me the goodies at each house. After about 5 houses, he really understood about walking up to each house on the street. We would be walking down the sidewalk from one house and he'd look up at me and say "More houses, Mommy?" How could I say no to that? We ended up at about a dozen houses and he was ready to head home to see Daddy and have a treat. We kept him to only 2 lollipops and a few M&Ms for the evening, so I was pretty happy. He has enough energy without a bunch of sugar in his system, I couldn't imagine what it would be like with loads of candy. Surprisingly enough, he actually had just as much fun handing out candy when we got home as he did trick or treating. We sat out front to hand out candy. Jacob had a handful of candy in his fist just waiting. Anytime there was a lull, he would say "more kids, Mommy. Where are the kids?" Hilarious to hear him call them "the kids"....since 95% of the trick or treaters were bigger kids than him. It was a memorable evening.

Another busy week

The boys had another very busy and fun week. I'll just do a quick recap of the week here, but I promise to include individual posts about trick or treating and the baptism soon.

Our week included the normal stuff like school, the gym, and bible study, but also featured a Halloween parade at Jacob's school, a Halloween party with our playgroup, a wonderful night of trick or treating for Jacob (more on that later), a dinner and birthday celebration for my SIL, Mindy, and the big event of the weekend, Luke's baptism and party (more on that later too). Throw in a visit to the doctor for Jacob's bronchitis and sinus infection, and we were hardly home. The weather this week continued to be fabulous as well, so I've also started taking the boys on long walks/runs every afternoon to enjoy the outdoors.

In other news on the boys, Jacob is up to 36 inches and 30 3/4 lbs. Luke is up to 24 inches and ~16.5lbs (on our scale). Luke has his 4 month checkup this Friday, so we'll get the official stats then.

Jacob started really singing some songs this week, including Twinkle Twinkle little star, Old MacDonald, B-I-N-G-O, and his ABCs. I didn't realize he could sing the whole thing (except that L-M-N-O-P, is O-O-O-O-P) until he broke out in song. It is pretty cute. I can't get him to sing on camera though. I'll keep trying. He has started to really pick up on some concepts lately, like things being "too big" or "too small" and making connections between books he has and 'live' or 'everyday' events. He also can identify by name tons of cars. He also picks out every Honda Accord on the road as "Daddy's car" and Toyota 4Runner as "Mommy's car" in whatever color it happens to be. It is neat to see his brain really working. Jacob has the capital letters, counting and identifying numbers to 12, and colors down pat, so we are turning our focus more to working on lowercase letters, shapes, and just for fun, the numbers in Spanish.

Luke seems more and more alert. Really taking in his surroundings and watching people, especially Jacob. I catch him just watching and smiling at Jacob often. He can roll from tummy to back pretty easily, but hasn't quite figured out how to roll from his back to his tummy. He lifts his legs straight up and turns himself onto his side, but that is as far as he can go. I expect he'll be turning over in no time. His legs are in constant motion too. He scoots himself around in his bed and on the floor when he is on his back just by his legs wailing around. He has started to reach for the rings hanging from his play gym. He has a really strong grip now and doesn't like to let go of whatever he happens to grab onto. He loves interaction, so anyone who will engage with him is rewarded with a lot of smiling, legs and arms moving around, and a lot of happy talking. We are getting into a loose sleep/awake routine, which is nice. He's not sleeping nearly as much during the day as he was even 2 weeks ago.

The sleeping habits of both boys is a post in itself as well. Go here for the rest of this week's pictures....be aware, there are a lot.