Our first visit to Santa...

"Hmmmm, what do I want??"

So we took Adam to see Santa last weekend at Russell's nursery. It was a pretty good gig all things considered. The background was cute and all proceeds went to help a family pay for their son's liver transplant -- who can argue with that? Adam really is the perfect age to visit Santa. He doesn't have stranger anxiety yet and he was ooohhed and ahhhhed over by everyone there. There were a couple babies just a bit older than Adam and they were not so willing to sit on the jolly fat man's lap. We'll see how it goes next year...

Halloween!! (only half a month late!)

Adam and his friends at daycare
Adam the caterpillar

Happy on Halloween!

Baby eats bananas (5 months old)

Adam is 5 months old today!!
When I was cooking dinner I decided to try some mashed up bananas just to see if he would know what to do with it. He opened his mouth up big...here's what happened next:

"What did you just put in my mouth?"

Looking coy for the camera

"Ask me what I really think about this"

"Umm, maybe not"

Max and I really truly cannot believe how much we love this little guy. Has he really only been with us for 5 months? We can't imagine life without him!

A different view...

So Adam likes to hang upside down. Crazy kid. He will hang there until his head turns beat red and we have to put him back upright so the blood can return to his toes. :)

Gotta love him!

We're home...

...from Adam's first trip out of the state!

How did he do on a 5 hour car trip? Not too bad really. On Wednesday morning he slept the 3 1/2 hours to Portland, we spent 3 hours at Clackamas having lunch and walking around the mall and then he slept the remaining 2 hours to Eugene. He basically did the same thing just in reverse on our way back on Thursday. Good boy Adam!

We had a good time visiting my friend Tiffany and her family in Eugene. We had Tiffany's bridal shower on Wednesday evening. It was a fun time and Tiffany got some great gifts. I wanted to get pics with Adam and Tiff but didn't get to it - I'm so bad at getting pictures. I will most definitely have some from her wedding reception in September. Adam had kind of a rough first night away from home. Not exactly sure what caused it but Mom was certainly tired - I didn't get a 5 hour nap each day!

On our way home we stopped to visit our friend Wendy and her new 2 month old daughter McKenna. As you know, Adam loves pretty girls so it was a fun visit. Here is the Adam and McKenna photo shoot:

Wendy had them hold hands - they're gonna love this when they're older!!

All in all it was a great trip!!

My little beach bum!

Baby. Cute.
Baby in boardshorts. Cute.
Baby in boardshorts on a baby adirondack chair. Pricelessly cute.

"All I need now is a cold drink!"

You know those pictures of the dogs where the camera angle is such that the head is huge and the body small? We are getting the same affect here:

Adam enjoys his tummy time for the most part. We are still waiting for him to put some effort into it and roll over...don't hold your breath, it could be a while :)

Think of us tomorrow as Adam, my mom and I head down to Eugene, Oregon to visit some friends and go to a bridal shower. It's a 5 hour drive!

"potty like a rockstar"

Adam got this cute onesie from his Auntie Jlo and Uncle Craig in Texas and I swear the boy can read because everytime we put him in it, that is exactly what he does. One of the first times I took him to mom and baby group, he wore this and proceeded to completely fill his diaper and it squished out EVERYWHERE. All the cute print was covered in poo. Fun. And even funner to clean it up away from home. Thanks Adam.

Here's a pic with Adam and his daddy. You can see the front of the onesie has cute brown stars.

As for other news, we had Adam's 4 month checkup on Wednesday. He is 14 lbs 8 oz (50th percentile) and 26 inches long (80th percentile). The doctor was very pleased with his growth and even commented "that he is very interactive for a gentleman of his age". We've always had people tell us that Adam seemed very alert. Adam had 4 shots at this appointment and I was totally dreading them. He screams bloody murder and will not be quieted until we are completely out of the building. Poor guy :(

Doctor also said it would be a good idea to start taking him swimming. He seems to love water so far so I plan to take him swimming soon. First I have to get lil swimmers diapers. No "code brown" when we are in the pool ;)

Ahhhhhh, comfort...

Yes, it's another sleeping picture of Adam. I took this picture because 1) I so enjoy the quick break I get when his eyelids are shut and 2) it shows Adam with his two favorite sleeping accessories: his binky and his blanket.

When Adam gets fussy and it's been ruled out he is not hungry, the best way to get him to sleep is to wrap him like a taco in his blanket and let him suck on his binky. It works almost instantly.

Doesn't he look long in this picture? His 4 month appointment is tomorrow so I will have more official height and weight information then.

What a difference a year makes...

You know those times when you remember exactly what happened on a given day... so when that day comes around the next year you can say "wow, it has been a year since that happened"?

That is me today.

Go back one year: July 3, 2008. We are just a couple, a family of two, getting ready to go out of town for the July 4th weekend. Our typical holiday weekend of camping and fishing. Max is at work and I am at home putting together last minute things and waiting for him to get home so we can leave to go to Banks Lake. I go out to the mailbox to pick up our mail and in it is my Fitness magazine. I'm flipping through it and see an ad for fitpregnancy.com -- so for grins and giggles I decide to check it out as we may be thinking about starting a family maybe in the next few months. Somehow I got on the page of "signs you could be pregnant" and on this page is something that I have never seen on pages like it. It went something like "you may experience menstrual like cramps and many women think they are just waiting for their period to start".

Uh oh. You mean the fact that my period is 4 days late (and boy was I perturbed because who wants their period at a lake!) and I've been taking ibuprofen because I'm lightly cramping and expecting Aunt Flo to visit at any moment could actually mean I'm pregnant? Oh crap. But I'm still not fully convinced of anything so I dig way back in the closet to find a box of pregnancy tests I had stashed. I tell myself I'm only doing this test to rule out being pregnant so I can enjoy the weekend. haha. So I sit down, do my business, set the stick down on the sink and wait while it works its magic. After giving it the prescribed amount of time I look over to a positive sign - can't remember now if it was one line, two lines or a plus - but either way that stick said my life was about to change in a BIG way. When Max got home from work, I took him in to the bathroom to show him and all I said was "my period was late so I peed on this stick and it said yes". Max's only reaction was "sweet".

I remember telling Max that weekend while we were out fishing that if I'm really pregnant (shock and denial were my middle names) that next 4th of July we would have a 4 month old. Well I really was pregnant and we do now have a nearly 4 month old. What a difference a year makes...a couple becomes a family of 3.

Here are some pictures of our 4 month old on July 3, 2009: