Great things in December

We had some family pictures taken by Kristyn, Gary's stepsister, while we were in Michigan for Thanksgiving.  I love how they turned out - baby Gary was such a ham!

Well, I’m not exactly sure how much baby Gary weighs now, but he’s doing quite well.  He’s still a chunk and he has to be at least 20-21 pounds now.  He will be 8 months old on the 17^th of December and the time goes far too quickly.  I still wish he could stay this way forever.  I still can’t get enough of him and I’m trying to take advantage of all the time I have with him.  He’s doing great and is such a happy baby.  The people in his room at church (during our Sunday School) just love him and are always excited to see him on Sunday mornings.  I have been so lucky and blessed with both boys.  They have both been very content, happy babies.

I just recently (this past week) changed his/our daily schedule.  I don’t know why I thought it was normal and don’t know how we got to this point, but we weren’t on much of a schedule during the day and he was still waking up in the middle of the night.  That left for a tired mommy every single day and it was frustrating and exhausting.  I have a great friend here at Ft Campbell, another fellow Captain’s wife, named Hillary who introduced me to the Baby Wise series of books.  If you don’t have them, get them.  I have the one that talks about getting your baby to sleep (which includes any and every aspect related to sleeping) and also the second Baby Wise book for your 5-12 month old.  I haven’t finished either yet, but after reading certain parts about feeding, schedules and sleeping, we are now in a great place.  We have a daily routine/schedule that we follow and he is now sleeping through the night.  For some reason I forgot the idea that it’s okay for babies to cry, and is actually good for them.  I was also putting him to bed at night after nursing, already asleep.  So he wasn’t falling asleep on his own.  Now he falls asleep on his own at bedtime and for naps during the day, and if he wakes a little during the night, he can get himself back to sleep.  Hallelujah!

He has been eating rice cereal for about 3 or 4 weeks now, and we just started him on vegetables and fruits a week or two ago.  Speaking of which, I am making our own baby food.  I’m borrowing a kit from the same friend that introduced me to Baby Wise.  I’m glad that I stay home with him and have the time to do this.  Although honestly, making the food doesn’t take long at all.  He has had sweet potatoes, peas and applesauce.  He’s not sure about the peas yet, but they didn’t blend very smoothly.  Caleb ate Gerber baby food just fine and he turned out great, but I love being able to make our own baby food and give him “real” food.  I’m still nursing, which I love, and hope to until he is about a year old. 

Caleb is doing great in school, and although he already had A’s and B’s, he continues to improve.  He somehow gets the idea that he can talk to us exactly like we talk (telling me what to do, lol), so he gets in trouble sometimes but we’re working on that.  He has friends in our neighborhood and loves playing outside with them as much as he can.  I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he likes to wear short sleeves even when it’s 40-something outside.  Haha.  You wouldn’t guess he was from Texas…you’d think he came from Michigan with Gary.  I love it when he talks about things that he learns from AWANA or Sunday School at church.  We were talking about prayer requests yesterday – apparently he learned what that meant during church yesterday. J 

We have a new little something to announce, on Gary’s end from work.  We didn’t expect this to happen so soon, but Gary will be taking command of a troop on January 23^rd.  To explain a little…Right now he is on staff in HHT (headquarters) for our battalion, which consists of five troops including headquarters.  So there’s Headquarters Troop, Alpha Troop, Bravo Troop, Charlie Troop and Delta Troop.  Gary will be the commander for Bravo troop, which roughly consists of about 91 guys.  Because of this, I will be our troop’s FRG leader (Family Readiness Group).  It’s a good bit of responsibility and I have some things to learn, but I’m excited to be in this position.  After all, this is what we came here for.  The best part is that Gary and I will be doing this together as a team.  They are scheduled to deploy in September, so it’s good that he will be taking command now.  He will have 8 months to get to know his soldiers and to train with them before leaving.

And…Christmas will be here very soon!  I can’t wait to see Caleb open his gifts, and I can’t wait for baby Gary to play with his new toys!

October Updates

Baby Gary had his six month checkup the other day.  He's doing well and is 19 pounds 2 ounces.  Chunky butt. He's doing well with sitting up, but he falls over sometimes.  He likes sitting in his saucer and loves the johnny jump-up.  I bought him a kick and play piano and he seems to like that quite a bit - except that he pushes it away from himself, not meaning to of course, and then can't reach it.  I asked my doctor the last time I saw her about baby food and told her that I wasn't ready to feed him baby food yet.  She said usually people are eager to feed their babies food already, so she said it was totally fine to wait, as long as he seems to be getting enough and is thriving.  He's still definitely getting enough.  I just don't see the need to rush into it yet - babies were meant to just have milk until they could eat real food anyway.  Kind of weird, but the pediatrician told me the other day to start him on baby food, cereal first.  Sorry, doc.  I don't agree with you (we didn't see his usual doctor that day).

Caleb is doing really well in school.  He brings home his first report card today, so we'll see for sure. :)  He told me today at lunch (visited him at school for lunch) that he didn't miss any on his spelling test this morning.  Good job, buddy!  He seems to do well in most things, and I can constantly see him improving - especially in reading and spelling.  His best subjects so far are science and social studies, but for some reason they don't give letter grades for those yet.  He is in AWANA at church on Wednesdays and I love seeing him learn more about God and learn his bible verses.  A couple of weeks ago he and Gary went camping with Cub Scouts and they had a great time.  As much as he loves sports and I would love for him to play sports in school when he's older (maybe soccer like he did before), I think he learns so many more valuable life lessons by being in Cub Scouts.  And I think it has helped him to come out of his shell a little bit, too.

Here's Gary playing his piano...I need to get more video of both he and Caleb.

Happy Friday!

Video!

Ok, thanks to my sweet friend Britni, I can now post videos!  I tried to the other day of a cute video of baby Gary, but was having error messages.  Now I figured out how to post onto YouTube to share the videos (don't worry, the videos are private so the world can't see).  Here's a recent video of baby Gary having some tummy time and learning to sit up.

Here's a second video.  It might seem slow, but I was trying to get him "talking."

Also, here's a picture of Caleb's ocean habitat project for school.  :)