My Pouty Pumpkin

Our adventure for Monday was to go take some pictures at the pumpkin patch. My neighbor and her 3 kids went too - looked to be a fun time. Well, Maddox didn't agree. He decided his "trick" for this Halloween was to make everyone at the pumpkin patch think I was the worst Mom ever. He screamed from the time we got out of the car. I promise I had fed him, changed him and he had slept right before we left. Maybe my kid is afraid of pumpkins. I don't know. At least we got the trick over and now I can wait for the treat! Mindi got some good pictures of her kids and they each got to pick out a pumpkin so that was fun. We got some pictures of Maddox - not really what we were going for, but they are funny anyway.

Notice the grumpy pumpkin behind him...they could be good friends!

My poor little man looks so sad. "Why do you do this to me Mom?"

This is my neighbor Nathan with the pumpkins they bought that day. He was so proud of his jack-o-lanterns.

Maddox has decided that everything tastes better when eaten sideways. I tried everything to get him to sit up straight, I thought I had him in the Bumbo lopsided, but he just kept leaning over, so we just went with it. He ate the whole bowl of cereal in this position.

This is his cute little outfit Mama C smocked for him. The blocks have his initials in them. He wore it to church this past Sunday and everyone thought he looked so cute!

We have started "sleep training" this week. He got to the point where he was only taking 30 minute naps during the day and was so unpredictable about when he would nap. He was also fussy a lot of the time and I knew he was tired, but couldn't get him to sleep. He was waking up about every hour or so during the night. Well, I can't keep up with that, so I plopped myself down in the floor of Barnes and Noble and picked out a book. I am only about half way through, but I have put into practice what I have read so far, and it is already working! We have only been in our sleep "boot camp" as I like to call it for 3 days but he is already doing so much better. So, if any of you are having the same troubles, I would like to recommend to you "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child." It is so great, and he acknowledges the real life factor of all of this as well, which most of the books don't. It also goes up through age 3 I think. So future help as well. I told my Mom I feel kind of dumb now after reading it, like I should have realized this on my own, but maybe I get a free pass since he is my first. Poor first kid has to suffer through his Mom's stupidity. Hopefully he will survive without too much damage!

The jumping Russian

Maddox has aquired two new abilities in the past two days. Yesterday he figured out how to make this funny gurgling noise and he thinks it is quite entertaining. In fact, it is pretty much the only noise he makes all day now. It doesn't matter if he has his pacifier in, or his hands in his mouth, or just laying around, he loves it. We find it quite amusing too. Caisson calls it his "Russian" language. Then today he was in his jumparoo, which he has always loved, but before he was just content with the toys and lights. He would sway a little bit, but mainly just played with his hands. Well today he figured out he could make it bounce too and he had the best time! Caisson took our good camera with him to Canada, but I did get it filmed on my old camera. The quality is not as good, and there is no sound, but you can see how excited he gets when he starts to bounce. I wish there was sound so you could hear the squeals of excitement and giggles that were coming out of my little man. He thought it was the best thing ever. I was cracking up. I know this is probably only really cute and funny to us, but I wanted to put it on here anyway. Carl, Landis and Shayde will be able to tell how much he has grown - we had him in this same jumparoo at their house a month ago and we had to put a couch pillow below him so his feet would have something to touch. Man, he is growing so fast!!






I am getting errors again trying to post my other pics, so I will try to put those up tomorrow. Blogger really doesn't like me.

Hope you have a great rest of the weekend!

Long live the Raiders

I have been cleaning out closets all week. I have been in one of those moods to get rid of the stuff that has been laying around forever and make my house a little less cluttered. So it hit me even harder with the unsentimental mood I am in that I can't get rid of this t-shirt.

I have loved this shirt since I got it when I was in 8th grade. (I think it was 8th grade - Kimberly and Garrett will correct me if that is wrong. I leave those details to them.) This is just the back of it, but if you look closely you will see the all the holes and the badly faded print. It is also so thin that you can just about see through it. This is not because of how hard I have been on it, or from wearing it while working on mission trips, because this shirt was never put in the "work shirt" pile. It is worn out simply because I have worn it. I have tried to throw it away several times and every time it ends up back in the good pile. Saying the "good pile" is funny - I couldn't wear this out of the house. So I started thinking why I can't give this up. It is not because it is the coolest t-shirt on the planet, it is because of the story behind it. One fall, Mom and Dad packed us all up and drove to Lubbock, TX for a Texas Tech football game. (Dad graduated from Tech). I don't remember who they played, or even if the Raiders won, but I do remember my Dad telling me to watch for the Raider who was about to ride around the stadium, seeing his excitement at having all of us there watching his alma mater play. I remember Dad taking us around campus and telling stories all weekend of the crazy things he did in college. Mom and Dad took us to the book stores and let us all pick a souvenir. This was mine. Now I know you were expecting this grand story of some amazing adventure that would prompt me to keep a t-shirt for this many years, but that is it. It is just such a great memory to me. It really hits me, now that I have a son of my own, how much something like this can mean to a child. I hope and pray that Caisson and I will be able to create the memories, traditions, and closeness that my parents created for us. I know that it must take a constant effort, and I have already found out in Maddox's almost 5 months how fast the time passes. So, Thanks, Mom and Dad, for taking us to the Tech game, and to Florida, and California, and for coaching our softball and t-ball teams, and coming to every sporting event, whether at home or away, and every pep rally, even when it made you late for work, and to the pool at Idlewild with lemon cookies, even though you don't like to swim. For making the trip to a small island in the Caribbean and to South Carolina and every other place we have lived so you can be involved in our lives. Every day I come across a memory and I thank God for the family I was born into.

Now I know that most of my visitors are coming to see pictures of Maddox, so I am not going to leave you hanging. We have some good ones this week:

Our air conditioner broke this week (again!). For the most part it hasn't been too bad because we have had some really nice days. One day was particularly hot though, and with Maddox being so hot natured, he really didn't enjoy it too much. So, Caisson finally stuck him in the freezer. He was actually happy there and got upset when we would take him out. Poor kid needs to live in Maine or maybe Alaska.

We are gearing up for Halloween, you know we love it, and of course we have to get Maddox ready too. This is the two eyed, two horned, flyin' purple finger eater that Aunt Kimberly got for Maddox. We laughed forever once we got him in it. It is a little reminiscent of the kid from "A Christmas Story." This picture is a little blurry, but it is the best one we got of the wiggle worm.

Side view of my little monster. He was such a good sport letting us dress him up and laugh at him!

Enjoying some game time with Dad.

This was the first time he wanted to hold his blanket. I thought it was so cute. He was just hanging out in the swing looking out the window and next thing I know he is catching a cat nap.

More attempts at cereal. This is so much fun! He is starting to get the hang of it now.

We also went to the doctor yesterday for his 4 month checkup. (We had to reschedule because of our Texas tour, so it was a little late.) Here are his current stats:

Weight: 15 lb 11 oz - 50th percentile

Height: 26 1/4" - 75th percentile

Head: 41 - 25th percentile

He was a champ about getting his shots. And I was so proud to answer all of his developmental questions with a yes! (cooing, lauging, rolling over, etc.)

Well, we are going to go take a nap...talk to you later.

Cereal and Surfin'

Well, I was finally able to upload pics. I don't know what was happening before, but they are here now! Maddox tried rice cereal for the first time last week. These are some pics from his first encounter with solid (semi solid at least) foods.

I don't think he was too impressed!

We have tried several more times and even thickened it up a bit since then and he is starting to take a good bit of if. I will post some more pics of that later. It is so much fun to feed him! We crack up the whole time and the camera never stops!

This surf board is the only way I can get him to spend some "tummy time".

He was working so hard to get that crab!

He is also the most hot natured baby I have ever known, (takes after his dad for sure), so this is now his usual attire - just a diaper. I think he looks so cute though, and it saves me quite a bit of laundry.

This was just one night after a bath and he was talking up a storm. He looked so cute in his little towel so I had to share this pic.

I haven't forgotten about posting pics from the party at my Grandma's for those of you who are waiting for those, we just haven't found the laptop cord yet so it is still out of commission.

Well, Caisson is bored and wants to play the Wii, so I am going to beat him in a game of bowling. I will post more tomorrow.