Four Months!

Dear Jack,

You are four months old today!

Not possible!  Not at all possible!  I recently met a friend of mine's new little girl, and you looked HUGE next to her!  Where has the time gone, and when did you get so big?!?  You are still a "newborn" in my mind!  Guess I should get with the program.

Anywho.  I have been told before that each little phase in your life will bring with it new and exciting moments and milestones, making it a little easier to let go of the previous phase.  What a blessing this is, because as a very sentimental person, I can tell you it is hard to accept the fact that you are growing up and will continue to do so!

This last month brought with it a few exciting "firsts", including sleeping in your crib for the first time and rolling over for the first time!  Yes, you sleep in your crib now.  In your room.  Without me.  I fought it!  I fought it for a while!  However, when I looked over and saw that your feet were butting up against the end of the bassinet and you couldn't really stretch your legs out straight, I knew it was time.   

We are currently working on getting you to sleep through the night.  I believe that I, your mother, have been a bit of a hinderance in this area as I will rush into your room to comfort you at the slightest sound of distress or discomfort.  Whoops.  Dr. Levin gave me some advice.  He said to let you fuss . . . hmm . . . He makes it sounds so simple!  And I guess it is.  Must work on this.  I think I'm getting better though.  I'll actually stare at the monitor and let you fuss for a whole minute and a half as opposed to the ten seconds I was giving it - that's what I call progress!  In all seriousness though, we have skipped a feeding at night.  You now go down for bed around 9:30 and will sleep until around 4:30 or 5.  That's good, right?!  I'll get up to feed you, put you back down, and you'll usually sleep until around 8 or 8:30!  

You have THE CUTEST personality, I am convinced.   You are so pleasant, so laid back, and just smile all the time.  You still love your activity mat, your baby einstein videos, and anything that lights up and makes noise.  You have gotten really good at holding onto things and will grab at anything within your reach.  Dad and I try to read to you everyday, and you really enjoy it.  I've found that you really like to look at us while we're reading, so you can see our faces.  You absolutely love your hands.  I believe this is one of your favorite past-times, to put your hands in your mouth.  They are literally in there all the time!

You LOVE to either sit up or stand up.  Anytime we have you laid back, you strain your neck to sit up and see what's going on.  It is so sweet to see your face when we stand you up - you look so excited and so proud of yourself, like you know you're getting to be a big boy.  And you are!  You are making lots of cute and funny noises these days, ranging from a "goo" to a prolonged "ccckkkkk" sound from the back of your throat.  So funny. 

You are currently wearing size 2 diapers and size 6 month clothing.  You still want to eat every three hours and are taking around three naps a day.  The first one comes about 2 to 3 hours after you wake up, and the next one is between two and four o'clock.  The last one is around 6 or 6:30, although I'm not quite sure yet if this is just you telling us that you're ready for bed.  Could be.  It can be a bit of a challenge to get you to go to sleep these days - it seems that you don't like the feeling of getting sleepy.  You don't fuss too long though and usually respond well to a little rocking and singing.

Well, another wonderful month is in the books, Jack, and you just continue to be our most favorite little person ever.  We love you so much, stinker!   

*Please excuse the photography.  While my subject is darling, my photography skills are lacking.*  

   

Three Month Check-Up!

We had our three month check-up yesterday, and Jack did great!

He weighed in at 14 lbs. 14 oz., and he is 26" long.  I forgot to ask what percentile that is, but I'm sure it's up there.  He is getting to be a chunk!  And he is very long.  I think we've got a basketball player on our hands!

Jack just thought Dr. Levin was the funniest thing ever.  He let out a big chuckle when Dr. Levin walked in that I think surprised Dr. Levin a bit.  He reminded me that not all babies do that at this point.  Sweet.  He sure knows the way to my heart - just compliment my baby and tell me how advanced he is for his age!  I wonder how many times a day he does that?!?  Doesn't matter, it makes a momma feel good :)

My mom snapped a few pics on her phone, and I just thought this string of pictures was too cute.

He left the office a happy-camper unlike the past two monthly check-ups.

No shots = happy baby and happy momma :)

Words to Live By

I saw this on a friends of mine's Instagram account, and I thought it was great.  I believe she got it from the book Bringing Up Boys by James C. Dobson, which I should probably read from cover to cover it sounds like.

"Children may not remember what you say, but they are usually impacted for life by what you do.  Character training is the primary goal of parenting, and character is learned more by watching than by hearing...children imitate more of what they see than what they hear.  Love others, exercise patience, talk gently to your spouse, serve your friends, live selflessly and grateful so your children will learn to do the same."

What a wonderful reminder of how we should live as Christians.  I will be the first to admit that I need to be reminded of this on a daily basis.  When life gets hectic and stressful at times, it can be difficult to remember to exercise patience or talk gently to your spouse.  

We have such a great responsibility as parents, to be a good example to our children.  We are responsible for teaching them God's word and showing them on a daily basis how to live according to it.  They are always watching us, looking for an example, and if that's not a sobering reminder, I don't know what is!  Well, also the fact that God requires these things of us :) 

"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"  

Micah 6:8

I pray that I will be a good example to Jack and any other child that we may be blessed with.  I may need to remind myself on a daily basis and some days will be easier than others, but we have been blessed with a great responsibility!  One that shouldn't be taken lightly.

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."  

Proverbs 22:6    

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."  

Galatians 5:22-23

     

We got a . . .

Jogging stroller!

I am pretty excited about this, although it will be a while before I can actually use it.

Reasons:

A.  Jack is too small and can't hold himself up in it yet, and

B.  I think it is going to rain until summer.

Luckily, Jack will be six months old with much better head-control at the end of April when the weather should be getting nicer . . . 

unless it's still raining . . . 

and then I'll be forced to jump off our balcony.  

Only kidding. . . kind of. 

And I am especially excited, because we got a super deal on it!  I had been looking at some single jogging strollers online, and they were all pretty much at least $200 and up.  Now while I am not one of those people who scours the internet for deals, I still couldn't bring myself to feel OK with spending that kind of money on a single jogging stroller when we may have more kids and need a double ( I am staying cautiously optimistic that I can even push one of these, much less jog with it ).  Trust me, I tried.

So my mom called the other day and said she saw one on Ashley's List for - get this - $75 or best offer.

SOLD!!

I thought, if this thing has wheels and rolls, it'll be worth it.  And it does!  I ended up getting it for $65, and all I had to do was meet the guy in Trussville and pick it up!  I probably should have been a little more weary about the kind of condition it was in, but they seemed like a nice, trust-worthy couple, so I went with it.  Hopefully one of wheels won't fly off as we're running down the sidewalk.

We'll see in April!

Four Years

* I started writing this yesterday, so please humor me on the date . . . the hubs had to use his computer 

Four years ago today was a Saturday.

It was February 7, 2009.

I was working at Enterprise and living at the Cameron at the Summit apartments with one of my very best friends, Lauren.

Jonathan and I had been dating for almost ten months.

Little did I know that that day, Saturday, February 7, 2009, was going to turn out to be one of the best days in our story as a couple. 

. . . . .

I had worked a half day that morning and was waiting on Jonathan to come and pick me up from my apartment.  His entire family had come into town that weekend for one of our church singings.  I had talked to him briefly that morning about the plans for that day.  He had said that before meeting up with everyone he wanted to take a walk.

This didn't strike me as being too odd, because, frankly, I knew that it would take a while to get ten people all going in the same direction!  So I thought, yeah, we probably do have time to take a little walk - it was surprisingly warm and sunny that day.  He told me not to wear work-out clothes , just to put on a normal outfit.  Ding ding!!!  Nope, still hadn't registered.

He picked me up, and we drove over to the Jemison Trail in Mountain Brook.  We had taken walks on that trail before, so the location was not too out of the ordinary either.  Not too far down the trail we came to a bench.  On the bench was a vase full of my favorite flowers.  I looked over at Jonathan as he was getting down on one knee to propose.

He did a wonderful job of surprising me and keeping everything a secret.  It was perfect :)

( Josh and Bonnie very kindly hid amongst the trees and captured these wonderful candid photos for us)

We wrapped up the day with a surprise limo ride with my entire family to Hot and Hot Fish Club, where we met up with Jonathan's family.  

The day couldn't have been any better!  

Now, here we are four years later - happy, still in love, with a growing family.

Life couldn't get any better.

I am so blessed.