5 months

it's amazing to think we've already known noah for 5 whole months! in the last few weeks, we've seen more and more of his personality develop and he's become *much* more interactive with the world around him. his sweet little smiles and personality are my favorite thing to come home to after a long night at work... the perfect medicine! as far as activities go: he now enjoys playing in his exersaucer for extended periods of time, rolling around on the floor and working up the strength to make it onto his knees, sitting up with minimal assistance and playing games like peek-a-boo and patty cake. the best part about this month? noah has really found his laugh! he used to give a small giggle or big gummy smile if we could really amuse him, now he belly laughs at most anything silly or goofy or pleasing to him. it is the best!

noah thought this rattle was *hilarious* the other day:

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after our trip last month to the pediatrician we were able to start noah on solid foods. like anything, this was both good and bad for many reasons. the good: a fuller tummy would mean our sound sleeper would hopefully return, solids can help settle little reflux tummies and decrease the symptoms, and it makes it that much easier for other people to help feed him. the bad: i was hoping to exclusively breastfeed for the first 6 months for noah's benefit (as always, noah had a different plan about what was best for him!), i now have to coordinate meals for our little one and have taken on the task of making all his baby food. we also had to re-work his schedule (through *lots* of trial and error -- sometimes it seemed like mostly error) to fit solids into his diet with his nursing schedule. so far we've tried apples, pears, bananas, avocado, sweet potatoes, zucchini and yellow squash. his favorites are the apples and pears. his least favorite is the sqaush. we also found that noah cannot do rice cereal and reflux medications....this equals some serious constipation for our little man. fortunately, this mommy is a pediatric ER nurse and was able to utilize some medication and a change in diet to "fix" this problem! we are still having some issues getting noah to settle back into a night-time schedule and routine -- made doubly difficult since matt and i both work nights/evenings so consistency can be tricky -- but we are working on those and are hoping that very soon noah will be back to falling asleep without problems at bedtime and sleeping through the night again.

what else in noah news? he got a visit from his paternal grandparents! at the beginning of the month both sets of matt's parents braved the texas heat for a visit from july 1 - 7th to get the chance to meet their grandson in person (noah and matt have had several video chats with our family in ohio). with our hectic work schedules and adjusting to life with a little one, we haven't had a chance to visit ohio this year, so this was a real treat! of course, noah loved all the attention... and matt and i weren't complaining too much about having some extra hands around to help for the week!

noah also got to meet his newest cousin, gabriella rae proctor, who actually bumped him out of the "youngest member of the extended family" spot a short 5 months after his arrival. he doesn't seem too excited about her just yet, nor she about him, but i'm sure that with time the two will have much more in common and be glad they have a cousin so close in age.

we go back to the pediatrician at the end of august, so i will post an update on his weight and height then. in the meantime, his unofficial weight is around 14 lbs. it's crazy to think he came home at less than 1/2 that weight! it seems like with each month that passes noah gets more fun to be around (read: more interactive), but he's less of a baby every day. despite our hectic schedules, i'm trying hard to appreciate each little moment and remind myself that the next time we do this i'll have a toddler running around! and while there is no question in my mind as to whether or not we will have more kids, it's also nice to enjoy just one little king right now :)

5 months

gabriella rae proctor

after much anticipation and excitement a 4th little proctor arrived via waterbirth to my sister and her husband on july 20th, 2011. sweet gabriella, or "brie" as she will be called by the family, pestered her mom with some start-and-stop labor over a couple days before making her grand (and ultimately speedy) entrance on wednesday morning at 10:56 am. she weighed in at a healthy 7 lbs 8 oz and was 20 inches long and is absolutely beautiful. as with her siblings, i was there for her birth and was able to enjoy the first few moments of her birthday with her and the proud parents.

i was also able to bring her two oldest siblings (maddie was sleeping) up to the birthing center a short while later so they could meet her. this proved to be quite an event since i had told the kids we were going for a surprise, and when we wound up at the birthing center liv was more than a little disappointed. it wasn't until we were half-way upstairs that she finally put it all together and realized that the only reason we would be visiting the birthing center was to meet her newest little sister (after this realization she leapt up the last several stairs!). however, my favorite part of the whole conversation was in the car while we were waiting for ray to be ready for us to arrive, it went something like this:

liv: what are we doing

me: we're waiting for your daddy

liv: what?! i thought you said we were going to a surprise?!

me: we are, but your daddy will be there too

liv: NO! i don't want him there! i see him *all* the time, he doesn't need to be at the surprise!

me: (suppressing giggles) he'll just be there to take pictures of you with your surprise

liv: well, fine.

that girl is so funny! after spending some time with their new baby sister, i took liv and jonah to the grocery store where we picked out a birthday cake for the family and some ice cream for grandma sharon's house.

the kids enjoyed the trip immensely and then we headed back over to grandma sharon's to gather everyone up for dinner at the proctor's house with the whole family. unfortunately, when we arrived back at grandma's house we found that the power was out...and the house was 85 degrees! not ideal when you are hosting a "slumber party" for a 5-, 3- and 2-year-old! so we loaded up again and everyone came to our house for the night. it was interesting, but an overall success and i was happy to be able to help. besides, it will be a great story to tell brie when she's older :)

our congratulations to the proctor family on their sweet little one and her arrival. happy birthday, baby gabriella!

king of the road

after years -- yes, years -- of shopping, pricing, comparing and negotiating matt and i finally brought home a new family-size vehicle on june 7. we traded in matt's 2000 mazda protege for something a little newer, larger and more likely to be able to haul around the large number of children we are currently planning on having :)

after all the shopping and test-driving, we settled on a nissan armada for it's size and reliability. while it's a lot of car for us right now, the plan is to have it paid off shortly and to be able to grow into it. this may seem silly in a time when gas prices consistently hover around $3.50/gallon, but it will mean no car payments or car shopping (hopefully) during any future pregnancies or with toddlers or infants in tow. also, it is not used as our commuter car, but instead for trips with noah or short trips to matt's work, so hopefully the gas mileage won't kill us!

it took some skill, patience and practice to get it to fit in the garage, but it does fit! matt was never a fan of so-called "big cars," but he's learning to appreciate the little things like tinted windows, steering wheel radio controls, back up cameras and keyless entry and keyless start :)

noah tries out the driver's seat...and facing forward in the car ;)

a photo tribute to the sweet little mazda we traded in...you were good to us, little car!

matt says goodbye

4 months

little noah is less "little" all the time. we've already hit the 4 month mark and i find myself thinking "in another 8 months he'll be ONE!" and "we're already 1/3 of the way to his first birthday!" (this is what happens when you grow up with a mom who's an accountant). i find myself reveling in all the things he has learned to do, and looking forward to seeing all the progress he will continue to make in the coming weeks and months. he has already out-grown all 0-3 month clothes and now only wears 6 month stuff (he's too tall for anything else)! of course, like mothers everywhere, i also find myself looking back at his newborn pics and thinking about how tiny and sweet he was then and how he is already so different. how is it possible that he has already grown up so much? he changes so quickly, and i feel like i am scrambling to keep up with all his firsts, his milestones and progress. thank God for good cameras!

in the exersaucer

shortly after the last noah post we reached one such milestone: noah slept through the night, 10+ hours, on may 29th! i would like to say there was much celebrating (well, eventually there was), but i was at work and was really none the wiser until i got a near-frantic phone call from my doting husband. it's 4:30am, and my phone rings at work, i'm scared so i pick up:

"jes?"

"yah, honey, what's wrong?!"

"he hasn't woken up yet!"

"what? what do you mean?"

"i mean, he usually wakes up for his bottle at 1:30 or 2:00 but he's not awake yet! do you think he's okay?!"

"uhm....yes, it's okay for him to sleep that long, he'll wake up when he's hungry. i promise."

"do you think i should wake him?"

"NO. do not wake that baby."

"but is he okay? he had tylenol for his teeth at 9:30pm, would that make him too sleepy?"

"no, it's worn off by now, he's just being good and sleeping. whatever you do, don't wake that baby! if he's still asleep when i get home in the morning, *i* will wake him up and feed him. i promise."

"okay. ...are you sure he's okay?"

"is he breathing?"

"yes, i've checked on him, like, 5 times."

"then, yes, he's okay. go get some sleep, i'll see you in the morning."

have i mentioned how much i love my husband and what an awesome father he is? :)

since then, noah has done a pretty good job of sleeping through the night. there have been a couple nights where he will still wake up around 2:30am and want to eat again, but they are no longer the norm and are few and far between. the other thing noah has gotten really good at is turning over from front to back. he was already doing this when i wrote the last post, but now he does it so easily and readily that it's funny to watch because it no longer scares the living daylights out of him. the only downside? sometimes he will flip himself over at night and wake himself up....grrr. eventually this won't phase him, but for right now it's enough to startle him awake. usually it's an easy fix, though, where we just go in, turn him back over and he falls right back to sleep. phew!

as far as rolling the other direction, noah has only done it once, but when he's on his back he is continuously twisting and attempting the back-to-tummy roll. i'm sure he'll have it perfected very soon. noah also started teething this past month, which we were *not* ready for! but, true to his do-everything-early nature, he started drooling, fussing, running a low-grade temp and gnawing on his hands and anything else he could attempt to fit into his mouth. fortunately we had some infant tylenol on hand which helped and, even though we haven't seen any teeth yet, the symptoms seem to have abated a bit for now. i'm sure we'll be seeing more of the teething monster in the months to come...

enjoying the bumbo chair with monkey

activity-wise noah is getting stronger and stronger all the time. he now can sit fairly comfortably in the bumbo chair (although he still doesn't enjoy it for extended periods of time) and he was able to try out his exersaucer for the first time last week. i was scared he wouldn't like it, but to my surprise (and maybe his, too) he was absolutely fascinated! he played for several minutes before deciding he was too tired and ready for a nap. yay for a new activity! he also spends lots of his time playing on a blanket on the floor now so he has free range to scoot and roll as he pleases. we've acquired a few new toys (moosey, monkey and the jingle ball being the favorites) that noah is enjoying practicing his gross motor skills with. he now grabs onto a toy and immediately attempts to bring it to his mouth and chew the heck out of it. for the most part, he's pretty successful and it's really fun to watch him be so independent with his toys.

moosey and noah

his favorite new game is having any of this toys dangled a few feet above him then lowered onto his stomach and then tickling him with said toy. he always erupts in a fit of giggles which is absolutely fabulous...but i have yet to catch this on video as i can't figure out the right timing and how to coordinate toys, camera, etc. we also invested more in noah's library (which is fairly puny by my standards, so thank you half-price books!) and added some additional classics to the mix: the cat in the hat comes back; the very quiet cricket; go, dog. go!; and the giving tree have all been well received so far :)

as far as noah's social calendar this month: he was able to spend some time in the sun with some AKUC friends at the field day, he celebrated matt's first father's day, attended aunt sarah's baby shower, and has been recently seen cruising the city in our new family-size SUV as sole king of the backseat kingdom (for a while longer).

so. cool.

more pics here:

4 months

we visit the pediatrician on the 30th, so i'll update this post after we go!

******update******

the numbers are in! as of june 30th, noah is now

13 lbs, 4 oz (25th percentile),

25 inches long (55th percentile), and now has a

head circumference of 16 inches (15th percentile)!

the pediatrician was very impressed with noah's weight gain since he seems to have a pretty significant case of reflux. she increased his medication doseage since we had begun seeing some ugly symptoms start to appear again (which meant no more sleeping through the night and some pretty bad tummy aches the week before we went to the visit), and gave us the green light for solid foods. yay for noah! now i guess i get to start making baby food... just when i think i have it all figured out and down to a routine. i should really know better by now! ;)

first father's day

on sunday, matt got the chance to stand in the spotlight a bit: we celebrated his first father's day! and the spotlight was really all his since all of our parents were out of town (his family was, obviously, in ohio and my family was at the lake for their annual trip). even though i worked the two nights before, i attempted to pull together a memorable first dad's day. here's how the day turned out:

i got off work at 0700, headed to the grocery store and picked up some breakfast necessities (long ago matt told me that all he wanted for father's day was eggs and bacon...), i also picked up a couple frappuccinos to ensure that i had enough energy and as a tasty treat for matt. i came home and wrapped presents, made cards and cleaned the house while matt slept late -- noah was up to help me for part of this before taking his mid-morning nap. we enjoyed a late breakfast of egg-bacon-cheese sandwiches and fruit then matt got to open his gifts. noah and i had surprised him with a hard-cover copy of watchmen, a meat thermometer for our grilling enthusiast, a box of his favorite bad-for-you treat (nutty bars), and a coupon for a round of golf -- redeemable when he pleases. fortunately, all the gifts were a big hit! we enjoyed the rest of the day at home, happy that no one had to be at work!

click for more pics:

first father's day

happy first father's day, honey! we can't wait to celebrate many, many more with you. even though you've only been at it for 16+ weeks, you are a pro at this fatherhood thing, and i couldn't have asked for a better husband for me and daddy for our son. love you!

the nursery!

so, when we first brought noah home i showed the disasterous, non-prepared, non-decorated nursery sweet little noah came home to. let's face it, having a baby a month early can really mess up your decorating plans! but here we are, a mere 15 weeks after his grand entrance into the world, and i've finally decided on a "theme" for the wall decorations and completed the room decor! i realize that i am probably the only one excited about this, but for posterity sake i am posting the pictures here.

here were the before pics:

and the final product!

i decided to go with a simple star theme so i can incorporate whatever else i might want later as noah gets older (i.e. firetrucks, sports, constructions stuff, etc.). i bought all the decorations from hobby lobby for less than $30 (including the paint) and painted the stars and made the mobile and the hanging stars above the crib. the only final touches will be getting a small table for next to the rocking chair and refinishing the bookcase and rocking chair....eventually. overall, i'm totally satisfied with the final product!

i think noah likes it, too!

3 month pics

it's very fortunate that i am friends with so many talented photographers. for noah's 3 month pics my friend carole wightman came and snapped some photos of our littlest king. we were lucky to even catch a few smiles! of course, photo sessions tend to wear him out, so by the end he was getting pretty tired. overall, i think it was a success though! thanks, carole!

click below to see the pics:

noah's 3 month pics