17 months - Summer Update

Summer is finally here in Western Washington - although it hasn't been all that hot or sunny most days - even in August :( We are still enjoying our summer and trying to get Hudson outside as much as possible when it's nice. Since the last update Hudson has finally reached some milestones - the biggest being WALKING! Although he's still not a full fledged walker and primarily crawls where he needs to go (especially if he's in a hurry), he's making progress and has been walking across the room/down the hall, etc. - but generally when he falls he crawls the rest of the way still :)

The end of July and beginning of August were a busy time for us with my best friend Katie's Bridal Shower that I hosted and then her wedding rehearsal and wedding the following week. Us girls stayed the night at the venue for a last 'slumber party' before the big day. We had a good night and fun getting ready in the morning all together. Saturday Katie and Phil said "I do" at The beautiful Edgewater House in Olalla (near Gig Harbor). Katie was a stunning bride and I was so proud to stand by her side as the Matron of Honor. I know they were meant to be and will have a long life together filled with fun adventures and happiness!

Since the wedding things have slowed down around here - we've decided to start some small-ish home projects since we will be staying at our current house longer than we originally planned due to the housing market. So one of the first things on our agenda is getting a new kitchen floor put in. Hopefully this will happen in the next couple months and we can move on to a few other things we'd like to get done. We also rearranged our room and got rid of our dresser/nightstands - so we are going to paint and buy a new dresser here ASAP too (I can only live out of my laundry basket for so long ..) Also in progress is re-decorating/organizing the play room - I am going to have Hudson paint some canvases for art work and we will be moving the desk into the closet soon to make more room for Hudson's toys :) I'm looking forward to getting some of these changes done and making the house more organized!

Last exciting news for this post - I ended up being able to get a day shift at work for next rotation!! I bid the "Flex" shift - which means I cover any vacations/sick leave/maternity leave etc. that they need covered. Only down side of it is that I "may" have to change shifts up to once a month. But I got my schedule for Sept and had the option of several good shifts - some even with Fri/Sat/Sun off!! I ended up taking the 8 am - 6 pm with Thurs/Fri/Sat off. This works best for us so we won't have to pay any more for our current daycare and we won't need a sitter on Saturdays when Andy is at work. I'm really excited to have weekends off and also that I won't have to go to bed at 7:30pm every night - but I'm bummed that I will have less time with Hudson on the days that I work since he goes to bed around 7:30 :( Hopefully he will start staying up a little later soon.

7 months old!!

Sorry for the delay in posting ..it's been a crazy, busy month!! :) I started training a new dispatcher at work, I've been trying to visit friends/family on my days off, keeping up with the daily household tasks and enjoying as much time as possible with my baby boy ...all of this has kept me pretty busy!!

Well..last week Hudson turned 7 months!! As I say every month, I can't believe how fast he's growing up. He's now pretty mobile..he rolls all over the place to get where he wants to go. He started pushing up a little more so I'm sure he'll be crawling in the next month. He is also finally breaking his first 2 teeth!! The past couple of days both his center, bottom teeth started poking through :) And lucky for us this hasn't really changed his happy mood and he is now only waking up once at night instead of not at all :)

We've been having so much fun watching our little man grow up and develop his amazingly happy personality.

I'm not sure of his exact stats this month, but I think he's pretty close to where he was at 6 months..almost 29 inches long and about 18 pounds. He's growing right out of all his 6-9 month clothes and will soon be wearing all 12 month stuff I imagine!!

Some of Hudson's favorites at 7 months:
**Giggling when daddy's beard touches his face**
**Laughing when Maverick makes noise or licks his face**
**Grabbing anything and everything he can get his hands on**
**Sitting up in the stroller and shopping carts so he can check out the world**
**LIGHTS! He LOVES looking at light fixtures and lights and is constantly looking up**
**Sophie the teething giraffe**
**Jumping in the jumperoo**
**Sitting up in the bath (we still need to get a bath ring or something for this)**

Sorry no pictures yet .. I will update them as soon as I'm at home on the computer that has all the pictures!

6 months ... 1/2 a year already ....

6 months..half a year...where does the time go??!! My baby is growing and changing so much every day. He has learned so much in the last 6 months and I'm enjoying every minute watching him grow. Here are some things he's learned/done in the past month:

-"Scooting" when on his tummy on the floor (he pushes his legs up like he wants to 'army crawl' and then scoots forward)
-Rolling all over the place constantly!
-Teething (one bottom tooth was starting to poke through but went back down for now)
-Become very interested in his toys, especially ones that make noise when you press them!
-Laughing hysterically at Daddy/Maverick and anyone that makes funny faces/dances, etc.
-Started eating many different solid foods (and this boy LOVES to eat...he's gonna be an expensive teenager!!lol)
-Grabbing at everything (toys, hair, clothes, books, blankets..)
-Almost too big for his infant carseat
-Sitting up on his own for about a minute or so
-Grabbing his feet when lying on his back

Here are all of the foods Hudson's tried so far:
-Grains: Rice cereal, Oatmeal
-Fruits: Avocado, Banana, Pears, Nectarines, Applesauce
-Veggies: Yams, Butternut Squash, Peas, Green beans

So far I have made all his baby food homemade except the applesauce and cereals (which I did buy organic). I am having a lot of fun doing this and I love knowing that he's getting food without any additives/preservatives/chemicals. I am going to try to continue to make his food as long as I can and start introducing him to more 'people food' the older he gets, especially once he gets teeth! I figure there's no reason to feed him bland tasteless babyfood when that's not what he'll be eating when he's older, might as well start him young :)

5 months old!!

Wow, the past 5 months have FLOWN by. It seems like just yesterday that I was in the hospital giving birth to my baby boy, now he's laughing/smiling/"talking"/rolling..it's amazing how fast babies grow and change. Hudson has brought me more joy in the last 5 months than I ever imagined was possible, I love this little one SO MUCH! :)

Here are a few things Hudson is doing at 5 months:

-Eating solid foods (rice cereal, avocado and applesauce so far!)

-Rolling from tummy to back and back to tummy...ALL.THE.TIME (after just rolling from his back for the first time last Thurs (8/13))

-Laughing when we make funny faces/noises or when Maverick licks his face or gets close to him

-"Talking" and jabbering all the time

-Still wearing mostly 3-6 month sized clothes and a few 6-9 month depending on the brand

-Weighs around 17-18 lbs

-Length is about 27 inches

-Usually sleeps through the night (from about 8pm-5am) or wakes up once to eat

-Eating about 4-6 oz of formula/breast milk every 3 hours during the day

-Still working on grabbing his feet, but he's always reaching for them and rolling around when he's on his back.

Milestones

This has been a week of milestones for Hudson! The first was on Sunday (August 8th) where he had his first taste of 'solid' foods! We decided to start with rice cereal..since that's what our pediatrician recommended. He did ok with it, although he still has a bit of what is called the 'tongue thrust reflex' so he pushes a lot of it back out of his mouth. I think he's slowly getting the hang of it though and we're thinking of introducing a new food in the next couple of days, maybe avocados!



This week Hudson has also started rolling over from tummy to back more. He did it over a month ago a couple of times and then not again until this week. The last few days he had really been rocking side to side and laying on his side when put on his back also. Then Thurs night while Andy and I were eating dinner, Hudson was lying on the floor and rolled from back to belly!! He did it a couple more times after that as well. We were so excited that we both were there to witness this milestone :) (Edit: I found out he had done this for my mom earlier in the day, which I suspected)



As you can see it's been a busy week for the little guy. All these changes have made him pretty sleepy as well, he seems to be sleeping longer stretches at night (or through the night..just not consistently every night), although his naps are still pretty sporadic and not on a very good schedule-this is one thing I'd really like to work on.

Well...I have about 5 more hours of work, then I get the next 3 nights off! I am so excited to spend some time with my baby boy...this being a working mom thing is tough .. I will post pictures soon!

Milestones!!

It's been another busy couple weeks with visitors and daily life with our little one. We are having so much fun as parents and loving watching Hudson grow and learn new things each day. Over the past few weeks he has become so much more alert and is spending more time awake during the day. It's been so much fun watching him recognize our voices and faces, look at toys, lay on his play mat and enjoy tummy time! He still isn't very interested in his swing, he usually only lasts a few minutes before he wants out, but he could lay on the floor forever looking at the toys hanging on his play mat and looking at himself in the little floor mirror we bought for him.

Another milestone he hit around week 5-6 was SMILING! He is now smiling 'socially' when we talk to him or when he's playing with his toys. It is so adorable to see!

One of Hudson's adorable smiles!!

Last Saturday was a busy day, we started off getting up early and heading to Point Defiance to walk in the March of Dimes. We walked with my friend Brie's team and had a great time. The walk wasn't too bad and Hudson slept most of it, which was a relief to me, since I was worried he'd wake up hungry! After the walk we headed home and a couple of Andy's friends/ex-coworkers came over for a lunch BBQ. They had a great time admiring Hudson and catching up with Andy since he hadn't seen them in a while.

Hudson all bundled up for the March of Dimes

Sunday we went down to Olympia and celebrated my Grandpa Lawrence's 79th birthday at the nursing home he's staying at. We enjoyed visiting with everyone and Hudson got to meet th rest of the family he hadn't met including my Uncle Dan and Aunt Gail, their daughters, Rachel and Anna and the McIntyre family! Unfortunately Grandpa isn't doing very well in the nursing home and seems to be declining in health each time we see him. It's very hard for me to see him like this, but I know he really enjoys seeing Hudson. He even commented on 'what a good looking baby he is.' We hope to get down there to visit him as much as we can while Andy and I are both off work since it will be hard once we are both working full time again.

Hayden (6 weeks) and Hudson (7 weeks)

Today we had a lunch playdate with The Smiths and baby Hayden! The boys spent half the time sleeping and eating, but did wake up for a bit to lay on a blanket together and look at eachother a bit! :) We can't wait until they start interacting with eachother and playing! It will be so fun to have them so close in age and watch them as they grow! After our play date we had dinner at my mom and Dean's house where my Great Aunt Jan and Great Uncle Dale were visiting. They were excited to meet Hudson for the first time and it was great to see them again since we don't see them often (they live in California).

Hudson's Great-Great Uncle Dale and Aunt Jan!!

Tummy time with Maverick :)