Alexander - 6 Months Old

Hello Alex,

You are 6 months old now!  Time flies when you are having fun, and we have definitely been having fun!  We continued the holiday season with your first Christmas.  It was wonderful!  We started the celebrating on Friday at your Grandma Gerry and Grandpa Rick's house.  Although the idea of gifts is still lost on you, you really enjoyed ripping the wrapping paper.

The next day, Christmas Eve, we went over to your Gram and Poppy's house.  You had fun with your cousins Will and Harrison.  We also went to mass that night with everyone.  You continue to just love it at mass.  St. Peter's had a baptismal font and you enjoyed splashing your hand in the holy water.  You also loved all the Christmas lights and the songs.

On Christmas Day we continued the celebration.  We started the day off at Gram and Poppy's house for our annual Christmas breakfast.  Then later on that day we went to your Great Aunt Patty's house to celebrate with all of my cousins.  You  really enjoyed yourself there since there were so many people.  You are a very social baby and you always seem to love being passed around to new people.  Brooke was especially into you this Christmas.  You really like her too!

 Mommy, Brooke, and Poppy with you

 You with a Christmas Bow

 Mommy with a bunch of her cousins

 Brady, Brooke, Grace and You (the next generation of cousins)

 The "Outlaws" AKA now, the "Survivors

 "Sharing" a beer with Poppy

Another Christmas Bow

So your first Christmas was a success!  You have definitely made my Christmas brighter!  Can't wait for the Christmases to come.

We also of course celebrated your first New Year.  I suppose there's not much you can do for the New Year at your age, but daddy and I did dress you up in his hat and gave you a noise maker.  You were not a fan of daddy blowing on that noise maker!  I'm sure you will love them in the years to come though:

Your physical development has been great!  You are on track and even a little ahead in some things.  You had your last Physical Therapy session this month.  Patrice, your therapist, said that you are doing fantastic and that you have officially graduated from PT.  Pretty exciting stuff!  Here is a picture of you right after your last session in your baby Under Armour:

You have also started sitting up on your own this month.  This has made you so happy to be able to do.  You can play with Tyler a lot easier now.  Not much longer and you will be crawling . . . you are so close!

Dad and I have been taking you out and about with us still.  We recently found out that Dooley's has reopened.  This made mommy so very happy!  So we went there.  I cannot wait till you can eat these burgers with me!  After Dooley's, we decided to take a trip to Ted Drewes before they close for a few weeks.  After the whole rice cereal incident last month, you have been very hesitant to eat anything except your bottles.  But when I put some of the frozen custard on your lips, you latched onto my finger like it was your job!  Don't worry, we will get lots of Ted Drewes for you growing up.

We celebrated your daddy's 31st birthday this month too.  We went to Cunettos.  Frankie, Erin and Tim were so glad to see you.  We have thoroughly exhausted you this month with all we have been doing!

We also took you to Llywelyn's to watch a Marquette Basketball Game.  There were a lot of people there and they were all so happy to see you in your cool Marquette Sweatshirt that Aunt E gave you. 

  

Sadly, your Great Grandpa Herm passed away this month.  We are so very grateful for the time we got with him.  We were not even sure if he was going to make it to meet you so we feel so fortunate that you two were at least able to spend the first 6 months of your life together.  He was a great man and he will be missed.  You got to see him one more time a couple days before he died.  You held his hand and he kissed you.  It was beautiful. Rest in Peace Grandpa Herm:

So that about wraps up the 6th month of your life.  Here is what you look like at 6 months old:

You have been such a wonderful baby!  Thanks for making me such a happy mommy!  I love you!

Love,

Mom

Alexander - 5 Months Old

Alex,

You are 5 months old now!  Time continues to fly and you continue to get bigger and bigger.  Everyone who holds you says, "Wow, this boy is solid."  And you are indeed!  We went to the doctor a couple weeks ago and you weighed 16 pounds 11.5 ounces and were 25.5 inches long.

We have been very busy this month kicking off your very first holiday season.  We had your first Thanksgiving.  I had to bake a cheesecake so I waited until you fell asleep to work on it.  Of course you woke up right as I was finishing up, so we just brought your bouncy chair into the kitchen and you "helped" mom finish baking.

After the cheesecake was finished, we headed out to your Grandma Gerry and Grandpa Rick's house.  You had so much fun playing with your cousin Alyssa there and you just played and played in your exersaucer  while everyone else ate Thanksgiving lunch.  After that we went over to Gram and Poppy's house.  That place was crazy!  There were so many people there.  Only a few people were unable to make it this year so it was a madhouse.  Both you and your cousin Harrison were a little overwhelmed at times, but for the most part you just went with the flow.  Next year you are going to just LOVE this though.  You will have so many people to play with!  So much fun.  Here is a picture of mom with most of her first cousins on Thanksgiving:

Great Grandpa Herm wasn't able to join us for Thanksgiving this year, so we paid him another visit.  You made him so happy again!  I love this picture of you holding his hand:

After Thanksgiving, we started getting ready for Christmas.  We headed out to Eckerts farm to cut down a Christmas Tree.  We picked out a nice white pine and daddy cut it down:

When we finally got the tree home, you just weren't acting quite right.  It didn't seem like you felt very good, so we decided to hold off on decorating and we put you to bed.  I decided to go to bed too since it was a very long day!  Luckily I did because at 3:30am you were not breathing very well.  I tried everything I could think of to make you feel better but it became obvious that I needed to call your doctor's office.  When the nurse heard how labored your breathing was she had me call 911 to get some EMTs to check your oxygen levels.  Well, long story short, we ended up taking your first ambulance ride to the ER.  Please, let's make this your LAST ambulance ride to the ER!  Anyway, you were diagnosed with croup.  It took a while to get through it, but once you were finally feeling better we decorated the tree.

We also took some pictures for our family Christmas Card this year.  Everyone LOVES our card this year - I KNOW it's because YOU are on it.  You are just such a fun, smiley baby!  It was so good to see your smiling face after your week and a half of croup!

I wasn't sure how you would take it when I put those lights on you, but you LOVED it!  You may as well have been in Disneyland!  So anyway, we are all ready for Christmas now!  Just a few more days till your first one!  We are so excited!

We had a couple "firsts" this month.  Your doctor told us we should try to give you some rice cereal for solid food practice.  Well you did not like it AT ALL!  You started off so happy sitting in your bumbo smiling at mom and dad:

And then once I started putting the spoon in your mouth, you just lost it.



We'll try again in a few weeks!  Hopefully we can start trying to give you vegetables soon.

So you still prefer bottles.  And another development you have this month is that you are starting to hold the bottle by yourself.  You cannot do it for any length of time yet, but you have still really started to have much better hand/eye coordination.

We are very lucky because when you are healthy, you laugh and giggle all the time.  Daddy loves to play "transformers" with you and you just laugh, and laugh and laugh!  It's awesome.  You continue to be a morning person kicking and smiling as soon as I come get you from your crib.  You have also become a total maniac in the bath!  You kick and splash like it is your job.  Mom and dad can't wait till you can sit up all by yourself so we can get rid of the baby tub and just let you loose in the big tub!  It's so fun to watch and I don't even mind getting all wet while bathing you!

You also REALLY like to jump and go crazy in your jumparoo!



This is my favorite picture of you right now:

It has been a great month and we have so much to look forward to!  Your first Christmas is coming up and I'm sure we will have a blast.  Looking forward to it!  Here are your 5 month pictures:

Christmas here we come!  I love you!

Love,

Mom

Alexander - 4 Months Old

Alex,

You are 4 months old now!  We had quite the eventful month.  As I left off in the post before this, we have been having so much fun watching the Cardinals in the post season.  Well, during this month of your life, the Cardinals won the World Series!  Look at you, the only baseball season you have ever been around for and your team already won!  Mom and dad went downtown to celebrate and you got to watch the final game with your Poppy.  It was such a fun time!

Speaking of baseball, you got to meet Jim Edmonds this month!  We were out at his restaurant, 15, for Grandpa Rick's birthday.  You were being fussier than normal, so I took you for a walk.  We sat just outside the bathroom when a little girl came up to you saying, "Baby!"  She really wanted to see you.  So I held you out to meet her and right behind her came her dad, yep, Jim Edmonds!  You were still fussy, so Jim asked if he could try to calm you down.  He told me he had 4 kids and he knew what to do.  So I handed you over.  You really seemed to like Jim Edmonds because he was able to calm you down.  We went to his table and met his wife and son too.  They were a very nice family.  We did get a picture, but I was told it was blurry.  I may post it here once I get it if it isn't too bad.  We'll see!

Of course Halloween happened during your 4th month.  You were a monkey.  We delivered Halloween candy to all the neighborhood kids and then we went to visit your cousins.  We started by visiting Will and Harrison.  Will was pretty excited and gung ho about Trick or Treating, but you and Harrison were perfectly happy just hanging out with Poppy. 

After we left Will and Harrison's house, we headed over to Grandma Gerry's house to hang out with your cousin Alyssa.  We ended up doing a little Trick or Treating with Alyssa.  You really hammed it up and showed off much to your Grandma's delight!  It was a fun Halloween this year and I know it will only get better!

We also carved some pumpkins this year.  I decided to do our innitials to represent our little family.  Daddy carved a scary scene:

You have started staying overnight with your Grandparents this month too!  The first time was not for a fun reason at all.  Your mom and dad were sick and so Gram had to pick you up.  Lucky for us though, you loved staying with Gram and you gave us some time to recover.  Yay!  Then mom and dad went to Chicago for Jackie and Willie's wedding.  You stayed with Grandma Gerry and Grandpa Rick for most of the weekend.  You loved being with them and they loved having you.  I really don't enjoy leaving you, but it's nice to know you are in such good hands when it is necessary.  It's also good to know that you have so much fun!  I know you will be spending many nights with your grandparents in the future!

You have had so many developmental improvements this month too!  Your fantastic head control has allowed you to do so many new things.  The first thing you do now is take a bath without the sling.  You are loving not having that silly sling in the way.  It allows you to sit deeper in the warm water and it also allows you to splash around in the water more!

You have also been enjoying your Bumbo and Exersaucer a lot!  I'm pretty sure you just enjoy doing something other than laying on you back now that you are able to.  Chrissy sends me pictures of you playing in your exersaucer at her house and you also like to play in the ones at both of your grandmas houses.  I put together your Jumparoo, but your legs have to get a bit longer for you to fully enjoy that.  Just a little more time and it will happen! 

Another thing you have started doing is grasping onto me when I hold you.  I used to just hold you, but now you hold me back.  It's such a wonderful feeling to have you clutching onto me!  Also, when you are breastfeeding, you have started to reach up for my face and you like to grasp onto my mouth and my nose.  When you are bottle feeding you like to try to hold onto the bottle. 

And the coolest thing you have started doing this month is rolling over.  You have been going from your tummy to back for a while now, but you started also going from your back to tummy!  Sometimes in the middle of the night you will roll over in your crib.  Although this wakes me up way more often than I would like, I'm so happy that you are so strong! 


You are getting to be such a big boy!  Here are your 4 month photos:

Mommy and daddy are having so much fun with you lately.  We know the best is yet to come too.  You make us so happy Alex!  Thanks for the first 4 months . . . we are looking forward to the rest!

Love,

Mom