Four Months Old and Changing so Quickly

Can you get a glimpse of the personality???

I cannot believe how quickly the past four months has flown by. I don't know if it's because I'm so sleep deprived or because this little baby is growing and changing so quickly. I think it's the latter. :) A little more personality comes out of Samuel with each passing day. I can just look at him and laugh on a regular basis. He can make so many expressive faces these days. I can already tell he's going to have quite the sense of humor. We have his swing set up in the kitchen and he often swings while I'm cooking or doing dishes. Well, the other day he kept making some really silly noises to get my attention. Every time I turned my back he'd make the noise, and when I'd turn around and look he'd just get a little grin on his face. I've posted a few recent pics that sort of describe what Samuel is doing right now.

We have to keep a bib on him all the time because he's drooling constantly. This must be the beginnings of teething because he's chewing on everything he can get his hands on and he's been a little fussier than usual too. I took this picture today and noticed how much thicker his hair is getting also. It sort of "puffs" up on top.
Samuel loves his daddy and the two can already be so playful together. He had no problems riding on Daddy's shoulders the other day. In fact he loved it as you can see.

Keeping socks on his feet is a difficult task. He's discovered his feet and so badly wants to get them to his mouth. Anytime he has socks on this is what it looks like. The other morning when I got him up his socks were just dangling off of his toes. It was so cute.

The bib says it all! This was Baby Boy's first introduction to rice cereal. You can see by the picture below how well that went. He didn't want any part of it. I said I was going to wait until six months to introduce solids, but in hopes of less spit up and more sleep we decided to give it a try. This is something brand new, so we'll keep you posted on how it's going.

I think this is the cutest little face ever.

Samuel seems to love books and of course I'm excited about that. These are the two he's most fond of right now. The Jesus Loves Me book is his absolute favorite. He even tries to turn the pages. We read it and sing along to the songs everynight before bed. This was passed to us from cousins Kyler, Klaire, and Khloe. Thank you!

The exersaucer has opened up a whole new world for the little guy. He Loves it! Thank you Aunt Jadon for passing this along to us. This pic also captures his "shy" look he gives sometimes.

Daddy's little Wolfpack fan. SJ gets to wear this on Saturdays when he watches the basketball games with dad. I'm currently looking for some Texas A&M gear so he'll be ready for baseball season. :)

This is one of the faces I get when he wakes up from a nap (usually). Most of the time he's grinning from ear to ear when I come in to get him. There are those times when he's not such a happy camper of course...

Needless to say, we love our little Samuel so much. I still look at him everyday in wonder and amazement. We are thankful.

Joy, Joy, Joy

These pictures really personify the phase we're in right now. Unless he has gas, is tired, hungry, bored, or riding in his carseat alone in the backseat the little "Big" guy is usually doing what he's doing in these three pics - smiling. I guess when we see this melt your heart like wax smile we tend to forget all the afore mentioned times when he's not exactly the happiest camper in the world. I just experience that today as a matter of fact. The weather finally slightly warmed up enough to get out and run some errands, so I was all pumped up and ready to venture out with my cute boy. I tried to time it to where he would fall asleep in the car. Nope! I had to pull off twice before we ever got to our first destination to find the paci and plug it back in. Still more screaming. At this point I can hardly remember where I'm needing to go or why I'm out. We make it to the first store and he's pretty stable but not alseep. Back we go in the car and more screaming until we arrive to Target. Let's just say more fiasco in the Target restroom but I'm determined we need the coffee, paper towels, gum, and cute shirt that's on sale so I keep moving. He did fall asleep in the baby carrier I was wearing him in until...we got back in the car. I did manage to calm him enough to drive off and head for the house. One vice that also helps is the iPod playlist I've made of all baby songs and lullabyes I turn on to calm him or get his attention, but it's only a temporary fix! I rush him into the house thinking that he must be starving and I need to feed him right away, but as soon as I sat him down (still in his carrier) the biggest grin you've ever seen came popping up on his face. I said "are you a stinker, Samuel?" He continued nonstop grinning, cooing, squealing, and smiling. Ughh!!

Once again the three hours of stress and emotional torture I had just endured melted away in a matter of seconds. That little stinker, he did it again! He really does bring us so much joy.

Happy Tuesday!

I know I am waaaayyy behind on posting. In the mean time, here are some pics that will put a smile on your face.

Samuel's First Friend

We had our first "Play Date" with a friend last week. Nicholas is a fellow birth center baby. His parents were in our birthing class and he was born two weeks before Samuel. Notice he too has a head full of dark hair. In fact, Samuel is on the left and Nicholas is on the right just in case you're trying to tell them apart. The visit was more for us moms but the babies had a good time sucking their fists together as you can see in the pictures. It was funny because we had planned to eat lunch, but by the time we managed to feed, diaper, and soothe both boys to sleep it was more like an afternoon snack. It was fun to share time with a new mom juggling tasks with our infants together. We're going to go visit Nicholas at his house next time.

Bed Head

Thank You Nap Nanny

We've been pretty sleepless around here to say the least. Even though Samuel is now 9 weeks old and weighs at least 13 lbs. he's still been wanting to nurse every 2 hrs. at night, so I've not had more than 2 consecutive hours of sleep in 9 weeks. He goes right back to sleep after feeding but still it's been rough! Anyway, I was talking to one of my friends from our birthing class who has a baby boy two weeks older than Samuel. We were sharing our ups and downs of being new moms and she introduced me to the Nap Nanny. We had a good laugh because she told me she found it online and ordered at 3am during one of her sleepless nights. Her baby has been sleeping five hour stretches and even an eight hour once or twice, so I wasted no time getting online to check it out. The price was a little more than I'd hoped, but at this point more than two or three hours sleep would be Priceless!! Needless to say, we are now proud owners of the NN ourselves and the first night we tried it with SJ he slept five hours straight! So far, so good... We've also gotten a bit more of a routine going around here. I've checked out about five different books from the library from all ends of the parenting pendulum trying to find something that resonates with us. One of the books has a schedule in it that is working well for us and for Samuel. Between having more of a routine and finding the NN we're making strides with getting more sleep and having more peace around here.

Mr. Social

We had our friends, Seth and Alicia over for dinner the other night. This is really the first time we've had anyone come over in a while, and I had been telling Samuel all day that our friends were coming, etc. When they walked in he just lit up. It was so precious. I thought he'd be shy or fuss a little, but he was all smiles. It doesn't hurt that Seth and Alicia are kid magnets. Samuel knew he liked them right away. Tyson snapped these pics of Seth talking to Samuel.