Yes, I have decided to start blogging again. So much has been going on with Thomas lately that I want to brag a little bit :)

You can see from the above picture that Thomas loves to use toys like this push toy and he has been using them to gain more and more sure footing. He is now able to take about 6 steps on his own before he realizes that he needs to go back to crawling. It is so cute to watch him toddling around the room. We've had to baby proof everything in the room where Thomas normally plays. He likes to climb so we had to take out all the bookshelves.


This is my favorite picture of Thomas. He loves to eat and he really goes after it. He has two teeth on the bottom now which makes him even more destructive to cantaloupes everywhere. He is also now able to eat most of what we eat. In the past week he has started demonstrating when his distaste for specific foods by spitting them out of his mouth.

Yes, I know you are supposed to wait until the first birthday to let them eat cake, but we let Thomas try cake at his cousin Noah's birthday. Of course he loved it. We've also let him try white cake and he definitely prefers chocolate.

While Thomas has been saying "Mama" for a while, he has recently started adding more words to his repertoire. He definitely says "Bye bye" and when you ask him what a kitty says, he says "meow". Today, he was playing with his cousin and he learned how to say "bubble". It is amazing to watch him learn and grow.

We also are super excited to bring our new little girl into the family. She will be joining us in 3 1/2 short months.

That's all the updates and pictures for now. I promise to update more frequently in the future.

We are now blogging at...

Josh has been doing a great job taking pictures of Thomas every day and we have started a new website - The Daily Thomas. Josh is still working on posting the pictures to the website daily, but at least you know I will be posting at least weekly.

Smiley, Happy Baby

I didn't post last week on Sunday because we had the big Superbowl party. It was a rousing success. We know that we had way too many people in our house, but it was really fun. Thomas was a little overwhelmed by all of the preparation and the noise and he stayed awake too long in the afternoon without a nap. When he finally went down, he slept for almost 4 hours!

This week has been crazy at work for me as I was preparing for a business trip to New York. Josh was great and kept talking me through the fact that when I am 30 minutes coming home from work, Thomas is still happy to see me. He doesn't really have a concept of time yet :) Yes, Josh is the best husband ever. He also takes these great pictures and sneds them to me everyday.

Thomas continues to love his Jumperoo. He is so into the discovery part of it, moving himself in a circle to access all the different activities. As usual, this indicates to us that he is a genius. He also rolled himself all the way over this week. He only did it once and he hasn't done it again. He really doesn't like being on his tummy, so he rolled right back over. It is amazing how much he changes.

I leave on Monday for New York and won't be back until Friday. I'm have a lot of meetings scheduled, so I think I will be mostly okay, but I'm a little nervous about how much I will miss my little family. I try to be rational about it most of the time, but I think it will be tough to be away. I don't leave until 3:00 tomorrow so I will at least get to see Josh and Thomas before I leave. Most days I don't get to see them before I leave the house in the morning.

That's all for this week. If you are friends with Josh on Facebook, keep an eye on his profile page. He uploads some of the pictures that he sends me everyday and has even uploaded a video of Thomas in his Jumperoo.

Obsessed with lists this week

My sister Hannah just put up this list on her blog from a list posted by my friend Joanne and and it inspired me...

Have you had - 100 things to experience in your lifetime
1. Started your own blog
Yep, here it is
2. Slept under the stars
Yes, more than once
3. Played in a band
Tacks to Girls! I played the bass.
4. Visited Hawaii
More than once :)
5. Watched a meteor shower
I've seen a couple
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
Hmm, more than I can afford? Hard to decide.
7. Been to Disneyland/World
Both! Disneyland many times
8. Climbed a mountain
Um, no.
9. Held a praying mantis
Not likely to happen
10. Sang a solo
Not for a long, long time, but definitely in the far distant past.
11. Bungee jumped
I would love to, but I've never quite had the nerve
12. Visited Paris
Twice!
13. Watched a lightning storm
In Texas, Colorado and Washington. The Texas ones were the best.
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
Knitting!
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
Never!
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
I've only seen it from Battery Park
18. Grown your own vegetables
On my counter :)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
Yes, it is very small and behind a lot of glass
20. Slept on an overnight train
Yes! From Florence to Paris.
21. Had a pillow fight
Only as a teenager
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
Yes, although we call that a mental health day
24. Built a snow fort
No, although I have built a snow man
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
Never!
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
Nope, didn't get to Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
As a little kid
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
Every day right now
31. Hit a home run
Does T Ball count?
32. Been on a cruise
On the Bateaux Mouche? Never a cruise where you sleep on the boat
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
From the Canada side
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
Where would that be? I've been to Chicago and San Francisco where my parents were born.
35. Seen an Amish community
Yes!
36. Taught yourself a new language
Not taugh myself
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
Yes, a nice feeling
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
Yes - it was really interesting and of course we did the photo where it looks like you are holding it up.
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David in person.
Yes - It was a lot bigger than I expected

I think the problem is that the 25 Random Things are going around Facebook. I like this much better. Filling in things is a little easier than coming up with 25 things.

Baby asleep - time for bed!

4 month doctor visit

We suspected that Thomas would move to the top of his growth charts with this doctor visit and he definitely did. He is now at 95-97% in all of the categories, weight, height and head size. He is also reaching all of his milestones except one - he doesn't roll over yet. This is not a surprise as he hates being on his stomach so we don't put him there often enough for him to really try to roll over :)

Okay, now for the stats:
Height - 26.5 inches
Head - 43.8 cm
Weight - 18 lbs

Don't ask me why they do the head in centimeters and the height in inches - that has never made sense to me.

Thomas also had to endure more shots today :( But, he calmed down quickly with his bottle and then went right to sleep for his long morning nap.

I'm posting this early since I wanted to update everyone on his progress (yep, I'm a proud mom). The picture above is one of my favorite from this week. Josh sends me a picture of Thomas every day at work and it is always great to see the little man smiling at me. We got some great pictures this week and I love that we do this everyday - it is going to give us a great record of his first year.

Hope all is well with you and yours.

Thomas is getting far too big! He has really outgrown the bassinet in his pack and play, so we have to start putting him in his crib. His room is upstairs, so we have been holding off as long as possible so that Josh doesn't have to try to climb the stairs in the middle of the night. Thomas still gets up for one feeding (usually around 4) so we have to take that into account. We also like having him in our room because it is convenient. I think this will be similar to when we had to move him into the bassinet from sleeping in our bed. It was tough for the first few nights because we had to keep getting up, but then we got used to it.

Josh is actually picking up the crib at Target right now. We had planned on using the crib that has been in my family for years, but due to a paint problem we cannot. Josh's mom has tried every furniture refinishing technique to get paint to stick to it and it just will not work.

Josh's parents came over to drop off the crib yesterday and stayed to play a game with us. Doesn't Thomas look like he really understands how to play and is actually helping his grandma?


We also put Thomas in his high chair for the first time yesterday. He is pretty good at sitting up by himself and it was nice to have him at the table with us while we were playing. Notice the 5 point harness they have in the high chair these days - very safe...


Josh has been taking a picture of Thomas everyday and sending it to me at work. He also posts these pictures on his Facebook page, so if these weekly updates aren't enough for you - you can look there.

Must go now - Thomas is desiring some entertainment.

First week back

We had a pretty good first week back. I find that it is pretty easy to get out of the house every morning, but harder to get back in the evening. I have no patience for how slow people are driving on the way home! I just want to be here with my little family.

On Thursday night, Josh had a hockey game, so we put Thomas in his bear suit and went to the Ice Rink. He looks so cute in his little outfit and he only protests a little when we put it on...

Josh injured his shoulder in the game, so I worked at home on Friday in case he needed help picking up Thomas. It turned out that my sister and brother in law were able to take him for the day, so I got lots of work done. It was nice to work at home because it took away all of that commuting time.
Yesterday, we had a baby shower for Jason and Joanne. They are expecting their new arrival sometime in the next 8ish weeks. We had a great time with friends and family. Thomas loved all the attention and was a happy little boy the entire time.


Finally, Thomas is getting very adept at holding things. Here is a picture of him holding his bottle. He is pretty good at holding on to it and actually getting it in his mouth. He still doesn't understand that in order to get the food he has to tip the bottle up.

Josh's shoulder is doing much better. He has a nasty bruise, but he is definitely on the mend. He has two more games left in this hockey season and then a total of 3 weeks off before the new season starts.

Hope you all had a good week :)

The last week

I've been enjoying the last week of my maternity leave and have been slacking on my blog. Thomas has wanted to play with us more and is having fun practicing his new skills. First, he has been sitting up a lot. He has his new Bumbo chair and can sit up at the table in it. He also likes to sit up on my lap and make faces at me. We have also noted that he likes to stand up a lot more now. He can almost stand up on his own - just holding on to our fingers. We are torn between thinking this is the cutest thing ever and wanting to slow him down. It is way too early for him to even think about standing up!

He has also been struggling with sleeping this year (he he - since Thursday). He had been sleeping for a long stretch at night and now he is awake again every couple of hours. He is also chewing on his hands and our fingers and his teething rings constantly, so he may be cutting some teeth. It is also way too early for teeth! Maybe he is so big that his body just thinks he is older. He is officially in only 6 month size clothing - and filling it out nicely. I can't wait to see how much he weighs at his next appointment.

Okay, okay, pictures:

First, can you believe this little face? Hannah took this picture and she got such a good shot of Thomas with his Great Grandma. He is learning to use all of those facial muscles!

Thomas with is Great Grandma and Grandpa. We need to take a 4 generations picture with them. My grandparents don't live that far away, but we only see them a couple of times a year. Recently, we have been talking about getting together more often. We decided that there is no reason to wait for holidays to see each other. We have a big group here in the Seattle/Tacoma area - 3 of my dad's 4 sisters live here and 4 of my cousins, in addition to my sisters and me. We plan to meet again in March for my grandparents birthdays.

Thomas at the hockey arena! Josh plays hockey and we go to watch his games most of the time. Sometimes we skip the 8:45 games. It is a great time for Thomas to hang out with his Aunt Jen since his Uncle Jeremy also plays hockey. I make Thomas wear his bear suit in the arena so that he doesn't get too cold.

Finally, a picture from Thomas' dedication. Chad, the pastor, remarked on how big Thomas is. Afterward, the rest of the family told us that the baby before him was 8 months old and about the same size as Thomas. Yes, he is going to be tall. Crazy.

We loved that a lot of our family was able to come. In addition to my parents, Hannah was able to attend as well as Robb and Reba and the boys. Josh's parents were also able to attend along with Thomas' Uncle Jimmy. It was a big group! Afterward, we all went to Red Robin for lunch.


That's about it. I'm going back to work tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'm really blessed to have a job that I like and a husband who is able to work at home. I know that Thomas will be in good hands and I don't have to worry. I'm going to miss them both like crazy every day, but I'm trying not to think about that part too much.

Blog posts going forward will probably slow down to once a week. I'm going to make an effort to update every Sunday. Hope everyone is having a great year so far.

Christmas Pictures

We had a such a good time on Christmas that I didn't take as many pictures as I thought I had. Robb and Reba have a lot more on their blog as well.


Thomas decided that we had too many presents to open. Exhausting :) Seriously, I thought this picture summed it up the best - we were all in the room laughing and opening of gifts and Thomas took a little snooze.

Thomas decided that Christmas would be the right day to start sitting up. He was on Josh's lap and he just leaned forward to grab something in front of him. Above, he is enjoying a gift that his cousin, Jacob gave him - a Kindergarten workbook. While it was a little over his head, Thomas enjoyed the pictures and was pointing at them and trying to turn the pages of the book.


In honor of my grandmother, I took this picture of the table on Christmas Eve. She always took a picture of the table before we sat down to eat on holidays. She passed away in June and I really missed her this Christmas. She loved the holidays and always gave us many gifts, from cool flashlights to socks and scarves and gloves. She really wanted to make it special for us every year. We got to spend some time talking about her on Christmas and it was nice to remember all the great things about her.


Thomas loves his Aunt Hannah.

He really loves all of his family. We are very blessed to have some many great people in our lives. We were able to see both my family and Josh's family on Christmas day. I was afraid that it was going to be hard for Thomas to have so much stimulation in one day, but he did really well. He has started going to sleep a little earlier at night - between 8:30 and 10 and sleeping until 5 or 5:30. We are really enjoying the extra sleep - just in time for me to go back to work. I have one more week of maternity leave.

At the beginning of my leave, I couldn't imagine going back to work. Now it doesn't seem as crazy. Josh is such a great dad and Thomas loves hanging out with him. I will miss them both all day long, but it is cool to know that they will be together.

Hope you all had a great Christmas!

We haven't taken that many pictures in the last couple of days as we have been getting everything ready for Christmas. We will have some cute pics over the next couple of days. We are planning on going to church today - as long as it doesn't get canceled. We woke up this morning to more snow - and it is still falling. My boy is napping a little - he gets grumpy when he doesn't get enough sleep.

Yesterday we made it into town to do some last minute shopping. We met up with my parents and my sister and her boys for lunch. We though we had timed it right, but Thomas had a total meltdown at Wendy's. He was so tired he did not know what to do. Josh was able to rock him to sleep and he napped for 3 hours. He has started taking one long afternoon nap - and when he does he is usually pretty happy afterward.

Then, we went to the Canfield's for dinner. They have a long, crazy driveway and we drove up from the bottom of the hill rather than try to slide down from the top. We got about half way up the hill and then lost it. Mike came down to help and he and Josh put the chains on the truck. We backed up and took another run at the hill and made it up. Josh is a really good driver in the snow and we are grateful that we have a 4WD. I bought chains for the truck several years ago and we have never used them - even on trips up to the mountains in the snow, but we have made great use out of them over the last couple of days.

We will be busy with family for the next two days, but before it all starts, I wanted to take a minute to say - Merry Christmas everybody! Hope you all have a wonderful couple of days with loved ones!

Snow Pictures

It still hasn't stopped snowing, but before it gets dark I wanted to take some pictures. This picture shows how much snow we have.

The cats love to sit at the window and watch the snow fall. I think they are also fascinated by the birds that have been hanging out in our backyard.

Thomas loves the snow. He watches out the window with great fascination.

They even canceled church today

Overnight we got another 8 inches of snow and it is still snowing. This morning we had that really fine snow and I was trying to tell if it was really rain, but it is now snow - the pretty, flaky kind. We managed to get out yesterday during a break in the weather. We went out to lunch, to Target and to Albertsons. We had eaten most of the meat in our house and I knew we were going to get a bunch more snow today so we bought more food. Of course we took the Explorer and put the chains in the back just in case.

Since we started attending, our church has never canceled due to snow, but today they called it off. We even came out here one time and turned around because we couldn't get down the driveway and there was still church on that day.

We might be able to get out if we put chains, but I'm thinking we will just stay here. No need to try to get down the hill unless we really need something.

I made that list of things we have been doing in the last post and forgot to say that we have also been playing a lot of games. So, for today I will leave you with a list of all the games we are playing:

Board games:
1. Settlers of Catan (this is a Canfield family favorite and once I learned to play, we bought it for my parents as well and now we all play).
2. Scrabble
3. Carcasonne
4. Boggle (well, we plan to play today)

Wii:
1. Wii Fit (we have to get some activity to work off the pounds)
2. Donkey Kong (downloaded on the Wii - classic DK from the 80's)
3. Super Mario (see above)
4. Excite Truck
5. Dance Dance Revolution

I'll take pictures later today to show the depth of snow!

What we have been doing while snowed in

1. Knitting (Sarah)
2. Working our way through our food stores (it's a good thing I go to the grocery store all the time and we have a fully stocked freezer/pantry/fridge)
3. Playing Wurdle (highly addictive iPhone game. I keep stealing Josh's phone to play.)
4. Watching news coverage of cars on the side of the road
5. Watching TV (Netflix is now available on Tivo!)
6. Enjoying the fire (We have not been able to make it work since we moved in and Josh figured out how to fix it yesterday - yay! We now have a little more warmth in the living room.)
7. Drinking tea and coffee and other hot drinks
8. Napping (mostly Thomas)
9. Playing with Thomas

Hope everyone is staying warm!

Family Photo

After I posted last night, we set up the camera to take this family photo. Thomas is getting dedicated at church this weekend and we needed a picture of the three of us together. It is amazing that we didn't have one yet.

We are having a mellow at home day and Thomas has been very snoozy. I have had a lot of time to work on my knitting and I just finished one of my balls of yarn and need to switch to a new one, so I thought it would be the perfect time to post this picture. I have about 3 knitting projects going and I hope to get some of them finished before I go back to work. I really need to finish the slippers I started for Josh. Now that he is home all day and it is so cold outside, he will actually get a chance to wear them.

Thomas is stirring - time to eat!

Thomas has definitely found his finger. He can also now reach out and grab things - although he is still working on exactly where the object is. I could swear that he was waving at me today. I was filling up the car with gas and waving to him from outside the window and he waved in response. I know, I know, he can't really wave this early, but it was the cutest thing.

Josh has been working during the day so Thomas and I try to get out of the house a little to avoid distracting him. Yesterday we met up with Noah and Rebecca. Thomas loves his cousin as you can see from the picture below.


My boy is definitely interacting with toys now. Josh's friends James and Anand came over two Saturdays ago and James brought the Tiger in the picture below. Thomas loves it. He will play with it and pull on the ring and then try to put the Tiger's ears in his mouth. He is definitely starting to chew on things. The other toy he loves is the Winnie the Pooh rattle in the picture above. He holds on to it like a security blanket.

Right now, Thomas is hanging out with his dad. He has had a mellow day - taking one very long nap (3.5 hours) and another short one a little while ago. Most of the time now he is sleeping for a 6-8 hour stretch at night, so we are feeling a little more rested. Still loving all this time we get to spend together and savoring our last few weeks before I go back to work.

Winter

I've been going through all the photos we have of Thomas and printing some to hang on our walls. The one above is from our day of Christmas tree hunting. It is the perfect little picture of Thomas. Josh is really good at getting the right shots of him. He actually took this one on his iPhone. I now have a bunch of pictures in frames for us to hang up.

Yesterday I started wrapping Christmas presents. I wanted to get a jump start on it so that I don't end up wrapping them all at the last minute. I am a very traditional wrapper - just paper, ribbon, bow - but Josh is way more creative. He doesn't like it if you can tell what the present is from the shape of it so he uses extra cardboard and paper to make the present into the shape of a dog or a bird or a dinosaur. It makes it really hard to guess what is inside :)

We went to the Canfield's last night for Mike's birthday. We will do a bigger celebration on Saturday so that everyone can be there. I love that we have been able to do things like this since our schedule is so flexible. I will miss this when I go back to work.

Speaking of work, I am going to Seattle today for our end of the year team party. Josh is going to take care of Thomas here. It will be a little bit of a dry run for us. I am really looking forward to seeing everyone prior to getting back into it in January.

That is all the news. It looks like we may get snow this weekend which will make for some very fun pictures.

Christmas is coming!

The Canfields were here today to bring Thomas his Santa outfit. He is truly the cutest baby ever (not that I am biased...). We have a couple big things coming up. We have to get pictures taken with Santa (we might try tomorrow), we have to finish our shopping and we have to get everything wrapped. I also bought a set of picture frames and some photo paper from Costco and I have been printing and framing pictures. We don't have a lot of things on the wall in our house and I am so excited to have some beautiful photos :)

We started a new schedule this week. Josh is working from 10-4 while I am still on leave. He is getting a lot done while I soak up as much time as possible with Thomas before I go back to work. We then get some focused family time at night. We've only been doing this for 2 days, but it seems to be working well.

Tomorrow, Thomas and I will be doing more shopping - and Santa pictures if all goes well :)

I've only read a few books (or Friday night plans)

Other than books about my baby (Dr. Sears, Baby 411, Bringing Home your Newborn, Girlfriend's Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood, the Milk Memos), I have only read 4 books while on maternity leave. At first, I was just trying to figure out what to do with the baby all the time - should I put him down, should I pick him up, was he hungry, did he have a dirty diaper, etc. Once I learned some of that stuff, I picked up Pillars of the Earth since I figured it would be good to read something nice and long. I loved it and then thought I might as well read Twilight before the seeing the movie. Now I have been reading the whole Twilight series and I am totally sucked in. I have always been a fan of fiction in general and series particularly. When I was a teenager, my mom used to make me read one classic for every Sweet Valley High book that I read. I moved on to other books as I got older, but I have always been a sucker for series. I go back to work in a month and I feel like I should have read better and more books while I was out. On the other hand, I'm so entertained by them that I might just let myself off the hook.

And, that is our Friday night plan. We are all together in the TV room - I am reading (my entertainment), Josh is playing Gears of War 2 on his Xbox (his entertainment) and Thomas is asleep in his bouncy chair.

So Big

I just went back through and looked at all of the pictures we have taken of Thomas since he was born. He has grown so much! I was looking at him next to me at dinner tonight and marveling at his big cheeks. He is almost 10 weeks old (tomorrow) and we last had him weighed at 8 weeks. He was 12 lb 10 oz. If he has gained an ounce a day since then (average for babies) he would now be 13 lb 8 oz (or 13.5 lbs). Of course he has been a big gainer for a while and could possible weigh more than that. He fits comfortably in 6 month size clothing and seems to be eating like a crazy man.

We are still amazed that we are parents and can't get over all of the great things our son does every day. Tonight he grabbed his foot. And today, he laughed. Now it is time for all of us to get a little sleep (we are still working on that part...).

Smile!

Josh spent a lot of time last night trying to get Thomas to smile for the camera and this is about as good as it gets. He gives us these big grins all the time but they are hard to capture on camera. Thomas is really into his dad right now. Whenever Josh comes into the room he gets really excited. It is the cutest thing in the world.

The rest is pretty normal. We are doing our Christmas shopping in fits and starts (mostly online) and enjoying our tree (although not as much as the cats are) and just enjoying watching our little boy grow.

The Christmas Tree is up!

It has been a while since I have had my tree up this early. Last year we finally got one about 2 weeks before Christmas on a really cold day. This year we will be able to enjoy it for almost 5 weeks. We can only do this kind of stuff because we don't work right now so we actually have time. It is nice to enjoy holidays without thinking about going back to work on Monday.

Thomas is not really into the tree yet. He has been sleeping on and off today and when he was awake he was more interested in his floor mat and having some time to exercise. Speaking of Thomas, he is stirring again so I must be off.

Christmas Tree Hunting

I haven't had time to process the videos yet since we have been hanging out with our families or the past couple of days. I just wanted to post this picture of Thomas from this morning. We went out to the Christmas tree farm in the misty, drizzly weather and Thomas got to ride in the Baby Bjorn. He was not always happy - he got very hungry at the end, but when he was enjoying himself, his dad took some great pictures. We think he is such a cute baby and we love it when he makes great faces at us. We got a great Christmas tree and we will be putting it up tomorrow. I hope that we will also get it lit and decorated. We will definitely put up some pictures if we are successful.

We also went to Target tonight - not for the crazy Black Friday sale thing, but because we needed wipes and a new toy for Thomas. We got him a rattle that lights up and he LOVES it. I can't get over how cool it is to see him interact with toys. I can just see all connections forming in his brain and it is amazing to think about how much he will change in the next couple of months.

Okay, enough gushing for me. We are going to go to bed - we stayed up way too late last night!

I love this video thing. I am going to use up all my allotted space on Blogger.

We went to the skating rink today. My nephews were out of school at noon and so they joined Josh and Jeremy for some skating. I came along to watch and to use our video camera. Rebecca also ended up staying the entire time. Jacob came out at one point for a break and he decided it would be a good time to teach Thomas about "all the things in the world and what they are for". I can't believe we actually got this on film.

I am having fun learning how to use the video camera and also how to use iMovie. There are some limits to the file size you can upload to Blogger and the first clip I created was too big. I'm sure I will figure out how to make bigger and longer movies as time goes by and at some point I will add soundtracks :)

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We are going to the Canfield's tomorrow so there should be some more videos/pictures on Friday.

Happy 2 month birthday, Thomas!

Thomas discovered that he could grasp his toys today. For the last week, he has seemed a lot more interested in toys and playing in general, but today he reached out and grabbed on to the bird on his bouncy seat. I looked down and he was holding on to it and moving it back and forth. I grabbed Josh and said "Look, he can grab on to things!" And, then we madly ran around looking for the charger for the video camera before discovering/remembering that our digital camera will take short videos. Now we are kicking ourselves for not capturing him on video up to this point. You will probably see more videos in the future from us.

It is amazing to watch our son learn and grow. I can't believe how much he has changed in two months. When he was born he could barely stay awake for an hour and now he has long stretches of wakefulness every day. Crazy. We both still look at each other and are amazed that we are parents.

Happy Birthday, Thomas!

When my friend, Sara, came to visit last week, they brought us this outfit. At the time I thought it wouldn't fit him for a few weeks (since it is a 6 month outfit), but all of a sudden he is no longer fitting into his 3 month clothing. I went out and bought a couple of extra of these since he needs some 6 month clothes. I am still trying to stuff him into 3 month clothes, but he seems to be getting bigger every day! ;)

We took him to see his first movie in the theater today. People keep telling us this is the best time to take him to movies because he still sleeps a lot and is relatively quiet. We wanted to try it in the middle of the day when there were less people there just in case he got loud. He did not make too much noise, but it was a little loud for him and we decided that it is hard to enjoy a movie when we are worried that he will make noise. Josh really took care of him during the movie and he did have to take him out at one point when he got a too talkative. It was a good experiment because now we know that when we want to go to the movies we will need to get a sitter. (Our moms are going to love that).

We saw Twilight for those of you that are wondering. We liked it. I read the book and it seemed really close to the story of the book with a few minor changes.

Okay, it is definitely my turn to entertain Thomas. He loves to hang out and play with us now and we are soaking up every minute of it...

Reunion

Here are the babies that are graduates of our Lamaze class. We had a great time today getting to meet all the babies and talk to all of the parents. Once again we were amazed at how everyone has such different babies and different experiences. One of the reasons there are so many baby books out there is that one thing does not work for every baby.

Speaking of baby books - we started reading to our son on the suggestion of our doctor. It was interesting. I used one book that had little mirrors in it and he liked that one the best. He seems to like mirrors. We have also been teaching him how to stick out his tongue. That one is more fun. He has been smiling a lot and now he is trying new facial expressions along with the smiles. His dad is especially good at getting him to do funny things.

I think we will turn in a little early tonight since we have had two later nights. Even though Thomas slept for a good 6 hours last night, I still need a couple of nights like that to catch up...

Smiley

We went out to see Quantum of Solace tonight and Grandma C took care of Thomas. We came back and he was full and happy. We have been smiling a lot with Thomas lately and once we got him in his seat, we all made faces at him while he smiled. He can also stick out his tongue which is the cutest thing to watch. He will watch Josh or I do it and then thinks about it for a while and then sticks out his tongue.

We have our class reunion with our Lamaze class tomorrow. We should get some great pictures :)

8 weeks old!

Thomas is 8 weeks old tomorrow, so we took him in for his official well check. He weighed 12 lbs 10 ounces and is 23.5 inches long. He is in the 75th percentile for both weight and height now. We also went over his milestones and he is definitely hitting them - smiling at us, lifting his head when he is on his belly, recognizing our faces and making noise other than crying (cooing and other "talking").

He also got his first big round of shots. I was there with him the whole time and was able to console him. The anticipation was worse than the actual shots. They were over faster than I expected and then they gave us a lot of time to just hang out with him and feed him before we had to give up the room.

The only bad news is that he has thrush. I had suspected that he did and that is why we went to the appointment today instead of tomorrow. Thrush is a yeast infection in the mouth that happens because an imbalance occurs. Babies usually only get it in their first few months of life while their little immune systems are getting up to speed. He has to have some medication for it and we hope that it clears up pretty quickly. We had to sterilize all of his bottles and pacifiers, but you can do that in the dishwasher, which makes things a lot easier. He is such a content baby that it doesn't seem to bother him a lot.

Thomas' grandmothers came over for dinner tonight. They are both without husbands this evening since our dads are away for various work reasons. It was fun to have them over and eat all together. I went back on the Weight Watchers on Monday, so I cooked something out of my great WW cookbook - Rosemary Chicken and Wild Rice. I love to cook and I don't do it a lot when I am working, so it is nice to be able to get to do it when I have some time here at home.

Here is Grandma C holding Thomas. He is so active - always moving his little arms and legs and working off all of his energy...

And here is Marna. She got a chance to feed him tonight and that made him laugh and smile. It is nice to be appreciated for the little things (like providing food) and I love that everyone gets a chance to be a part of that process.


It is late enough now that I could easily get distracted and end up staying up a couple of extra hours. Instead, I think I will post this and go to bed.

I will report that I read my book after my last post instead of napping. I finally finished it today and I loved it. Now maybe I can catch up on my sleep. :)

We got our new car!

The Volkswagen dealer called yesterday to tell us that our new car had finally arrived. We ordered it in July and we were not quite sure when it would get here. It is a 2009 Jetta Wagon. We had been waiting for the 2009s to come out because VW is finally doing diesel Jettas again. Although diesel costs about 85 cents a gallon more than gas, we expect to get much better fuel economy. I took it out this morning and for the whole trip I got 38.5 miles to the gallon. Not bad. We were also excited to get it because we expected that Thomas would fit in there a little better than in the sedan and he does. So now we have our "family" car. So far we love it.

This morning, Thomas and I went to the La Leche League meeting. For those of you who don't know, LLL is an international organization dedicated to the support and education of breastfeeding moms. They have a monthly meeting on Bainbridge Island and there were women there from all over the Kitsap Peninsula. My friend, Sara, invited me to come with her and I was glad I had someone I knew there. They also have a smaller group for new moms that meets weekly and I am going to join them for the rest of my maternity leave. It is always nice to have a group of other new moms to meet with and share information. I am lucky because Josh is here all day with me so I have someone else to talk to all the time. But, it is nice to have an outing and it gives Josh a chance to get some work done without Thomas and I distracting him.

In other news, we are putting one of our houses back on the market. Josh met with our realtor while I was out and got all the paperwork done. It will be for sale again starting on Monday. We would appreciate your prayers that it will sell quickly and with no weird conditions. After all we have been through with our houses, we still have hope that we can sell it soon. It is in a great area and there aren't that many other houses for sale there so we are really hoping that this will go well.

Okay, I'm off to nap - or read my book, can't quite decide.

So Cozy

Thomas is not a big fan of his swing. He far prefers his bouncy seat (thanks Uncle Jason and Aunt Joanne!). He will hang out in his bouncy seat now and kick and bat at the toys that hang over his head. I did use the swing to put him in while he was asleep last night and he slumped right over. He looked so cozy!

Our friends, Matt and Sara, came over for a visit today with their son, Rudy. Rudy is one month older than Thomas so I always feel like we get a little bit of a glimpse of the future when we see him. We had a great time exchanging stories. It is really helpful to have friends that have babies the same age as Thomas so we can swap stories and know that what we are going through is normal.

We are off to Josh's hockey game in a few minutes. My baby is fed and happy and we are going to root for Daddy to make a goal tonight!

On Thursday we went over to the Canfield's house for some manual labor. They pulled out the ceiling in their basement and discovered that one of the beams is not as thick as it should be, so they needed to put steel beams in before they finished putting in a new ceiling. I don't have pictures of the carrying of the steel beam since I ran off to lunch with Hannah, but I understand it was quite the production. They had 5 guys to carry the beams, but I'm glad I missed it since I would have been worried about permanent injury to Josh.

Here is a picture of Jeremy and Marvin jacking up the house before they put in the new beam:


Last night we went down to Tacoma to the Old Spaghetti Factory to meet up with the extended Snelling family. There were 25 of us there and we had a great time eating and visiting. My parents and Robb and Reba are out of town so they were unable to come, which was too bad because we had a great time seeing everyone.

Here is my cousin Marci holding Thomas and showing him off to my cousin Christine and her niece (my second cousin) Maddie:

My grandparents have 9 great grandchildren and 5 of them were there last night. Thomas is their 8th great grandchild - my cousin, Tim, and his wife, Stephanie, just had a baby 4 weeks ago. Last night was the first time they got to meet Thomas:


The reason for this get together is that my cousin, Sondra, was in town with her husband and her (almost) 2 year old from North Carolina. They won't be back for Christmas when we all normally get together, so we took this as an opportunity to see everyone. Faith is only 18 months older than Thomas and she was fascinated by him.

We got home rather late and Thomas was still in his car seat. He stayed there for until his 2 am feeding. He is now chilling out next to me in his swing. He has been eating like crazy so I suspect he will once again break the scales when we go to the doctor on Thursday. :)

Today we will just be chilling here. It looks like we are going to get a break from the rain so we may even get a walk in today.

I guess we have been busy in the past couple of days since I haven't posted any pictures. Thomas has been pretty wakeful during the day which doesn't leave me a lot of time to post either. We have been blessed by two long sleep stretches at night. Last night, Thomas slept from 10 - 3 (that is 5 hours!) and the night before from 10-4 (6 hours!). I knew that we should expect that to happen around this age, but I wasn't holding out hope. He seemed pretty set on waking up every 3 hours or so. After the long stretch, he wakes up every couple of hours to eat until about 9 or 10. He takes about 3 one hour naps during the day, but he likes to be awake the rest of the time. We may be getting to an actual schedule.

Yesterday, Josh took my older nephews ice skating and I spent some time with my sister and my nephew, Noah -

We also hung out with Jeremy and played a game.

Tuesday we had a visit from the cable guy. Afterward, we ventured out to Best Buy and Costco. We bought a few new technology toys (like a big hard drive to store all of our pictures and movies). Thomas has also been hanging out with his dad a lot -
We are expecting a visit from Hannah today and then we will be helping out the Canfields on some heavy lifting (well, Josh will be doing the heavy lifting).

Thomas is waking up again to eat. Have a great day!

My son is laying next to an inch worm toy that he has. It is exactly 24 inches long. Crazy. He is growing out of clothes faster than he can wear them. I bought size 2 diapers for him today (we have about 50 of the size ones left and that will be about the time when we really need to go to a bigger size). I'm curious about when it will slow down. Obviously he cannot gain a pound a week for his entire first year - he would be 52 pounds! We'll see how big he is at his 2 month appointment next week :)

I had my appointment with the doctor today and got a clean bill of health. Everything has healed well and I can now start lifting weights. I went by myself and then did a little shopping before meeting Josh and Joey for lunch. After lunch, we went to visit Josh's parents - they have been out of town for a week and they were dying to see Thomas. It was a crazy full day. Tomorrow is more low key - the only thing we have going is a visit from the cable guy. If it doesn't rain, we may be able to go out for a nice walk!

Date Night

After Thomas eats, he likes to take a BIG stretch. It is really cute.

As you can see, Thomas is in fan mode again with his Seahawks gear. He is not a fair weather fan. The Seahawks have been having a pretty rough season. Today's game looked a little better. Even though they lost, it was pretty close.

Last night, we had our first away from baby outing. We dropped Thomas off at my sister's and went to a movie. We opted for funny (Role Models) rather than action/violence. It was a good choice - nice and diverting. We all survived. We might actually go to dinner and a movie next time :)

Okay, I have dinner on the stove so I must go - more pictures tomorrow.

Friday Lite

Thomas is zonked out in his chair, so no new picture today. We took him to the doctor this morning for one of those "Is this normal?" visits. He has a rash on his neck and cheeks and has had it for a week or so. I was pretty sure it was heat rash, but after a week of looking at it, I wanted to be sure. The doctor assured me that this is a normal rash - it has a technical name, but it translates to "baby rash". She told us we could put vaseline on it if we were concerned, but it won't really make it go away any faster. It reminds me a little of the baby acne - don't do anything and it will go away on its own.

Of course, they also weighed him, so now we know how much he weighs when people ask. He is now a healthy 11 lbs, 7 ounces. He has gained almost 3 lbs in 3 weeks! If he continues at the current rate, he will weigh over 13 lbs at his 2 month appointment :)

That is all the excitement for today. Josh and I are off to clean his old house.

Rites of Passage

Happy 6 week old birthday to Thomas. It is hard to believe that we were all in the hospital 6 weeks ago. Now we have a smiley, active little boy. Check out those (tiny) fat rolls on his thighs. He is growing! Two more weeks until his next weigh in and measurements. I'm excited to find out how big he is, but sad that he has to get shots.
I'm told that it is traditional for a new mom to change her hairstyle. So, we all went down to the salon today and I got my hairs chopped off and got rid of all the blond highlights. I loved having long hair, but Thomas has started getting it stuck in his hands. Josh also got a haircut. Then we went over to Old Navy and did a little family shopping.

We are off to the Ice Arena for Josh's hockey game!

Yay! The election is over!

I won't write about the election since so much has already been written. I was really happy to be at home (not working) so I could watch all of the coverage yesterday and today. Regardless of what happens next, it will be cool to tell Thomas about the election when he grows up. This time we have with him in his first few weeks of life is precious and I can't wait to tell him about the historic things that happened while we were getting to know him.

Our one outing today was to Costco. I like to go just to get out of the house and to walk around. It gets me out of my chair :) That is all the excitement for today.

Last night, we headed over to Seattle (well, Tukwila really) to pick up Josh's cousin, Joey, from the airport. Joey is here from LA visiting us for the week. We went with Josh's parents and his brother, Jason, to dinner. Here is Josh, feeding his son in the restaurant:

And, Uncle Jason feeding Thomas as well. Thomas was fed by lots of us at the table. I find that the bottle is nice because it allows everyone to get involved in the process. I really enjoy the time when I get to feed Thomas and it is nice to share that experience.

Thomas was uncomfortable all day yesterday. I hate to describe him as fussy because he is so mellow. Fussy for him means a little cry here and there. I knew he was uncomfortable because he was so wiggly and the noises he made indicated some discomfort. He ate like crazy all day and Josh suggested he might be having a growth spurt. It is the right time for it - generally babies go through growth spurts at 3 and 6 weeks and then 3 months, 6 months, 9 months. I have noticed in the last week how much bigger he looks.

We were at the restaurant until 9 or so and he got pretty fussy at the end. Lately, he has been fighting off sleep instead of just dropping off. I took him and rocked him a little and he went to sleep in about 2 minutes. He must have been really tired because he slept until 2 am! It was great. We are working on stretching out those long sleeps and getting them to go from 11 to 4 or 5, but I'm not complaining. Any time I get 4 hours of sleep in a row I am happy.

Here is a current picture of Thomas, sleeping away the morning:

Happy Election Day everyone. Remember, this little guy is going to be voting in 2026 :)

I love coming home on Sunday afternoon and hanging out as a family. This time is truly restful for us and we get a chance to enjoy each other. Today Grandpa C came over for a visit. He brought Thomas some new booties from Grandma C - you can see them in the picture below.
We then gave Grandpa the joy of feeding Thomas. He was fed by Marna at lunch, so he is getting lots of food from his grandparents today.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Thomas is growing out of all of his clothes. I can now buy 3 month old clothes for him - he has grown out of all of his newborn and 0-3 month clothes. The reason he needs bigger clothes has a lot to do with his length and not as much to do with his weight. He is a tall, skinny dude. Once we got past the initial weight issues, he has really taken this growing thing seriously. I love to see him change so much.

Other big milestones are coming up and we can already see signs of them. He is great at smiling and has started giving us the big grin. Today, Josh had him sitting up and you can see that he has a lot more head control. Pretty soon he will be cruising around the room :)