5 months

Our little boy turned 5 months last week! He is just the cutest little man. Well...not that little, we're estimating he weighs about 20 pounds now!

At 5 months, Jamie loves playing with and trying to eat his feet, and we can't keep him on his back. He rolls over all the time, and he can push his chest and tummy all the way off the floor. He is also very good at spinning himself in circles while on his tummy. He tries to grab anything and everything within his reach (and out of his reach too), but once he gets ahold of one thing, he quickly loses interest and reaches for something else...but only after shoving it in his mouth first, of course. He has 2 very cute but very sharp little teeth, which he uses to gnaw on our fingers (ouch!). He loves going for walks and seeing new places. If he's being particularly fussy, I can pop him in the stroller and go for a walk and it almost always calms him down. Jamie has the cutest smile and the most adorable laugh, even if he doesn't laugh as often as I'd like. I could listen to it all day! He's pretty ticklish; the best way to make him squeal and giggle is to give him kisses on his tummy and his side.

Our biggest problem with Jamie is his sleep habits. He usually does pretty well at night, waking up just once (we've had a few bad nights lately, but last night he slept for 9 hours before waking up!), but he only lets Mommy put him to bed, and it can take several tries before he'll stay asleep. He is a TERRIBLE napper. It's rare for him to nap longer than 45 minutes, and sometimes he won't even go that long. If I hold him through the whole nap, I can get him to sleep longer but then I have no chance to get anything done. It can be very frustrating, but he usually wakes up with the biggest smile on his face, so that helps make up for it. I swear, if he took good naps, he would be such an easy baby. I just got a book called The No Cry Nap Solution, which has some good ideas I want to try out, but as we're going to France in just a couple weeks and then straight to Kirksville for Christmas, I feel like the jet lag and being away from home would screw up what little progress we'd be able to make by then, so I may wait til January to start them. I'll keep you posted, though... Any suggestions would also be appreciated (as long as they're not of the cry-it-out variety)!

We love our little man so much and feel so lucky to have him!

a little bit of everything

When I wait this long to update the blog, there's just too much to catch up on...so here's a quick recap of our last month or two.

At the end of September, I turned 25! We went to P. F. Chang's for dinner (yum!) and Thomas made me a cake. Not the most exciting birthday I've ever had, since most of the day was just like any other, but it was fun to go out and I got quite a few nice presents too.

At the beginning of October, Thomas had a conference to go to in Philadelphia, so instead of staying in Knoxville, Jamie and I took advantage of his absence and went to Kirksville for a visit. He was such a good flyer! I wish we could always fly. This is sadly the best picture I could get of his first flight. While we were in Kirksville, we spent most of our time visiting grandparents and playing outside (not so easy to do at our apartment, unfortunately). I also got to hang out with some friends while my mom watched Jamie, which was really nice. It was mostly just a relaxing trip. Here's just a couple pictures.

piano lesson with Uncle Johnny

playing in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard

(I miss having a yard soooo much now that I have a baby!)

Mr. James turned 4 months right after we got back from our trip. I will have to do a separate post with his updates. He has been a busy boy lately!

Thomas's sister Emily came for a visit during her midterm break. I'm afraid I didn't get many pictures of her visit, but Jamie had fun playing with his aunt and we had fun hanging out and showing her around Knoxville.

Last weekend we drove out to Great Smoky Mountain National Park, which is only about an hour from here, and went on a short hike. It was so beautiful! And a couple of the towns near the entrances to the park look like they have a lot of fun stuff to do. We plan to go back many times.
We also met two other couples from Missouri doing the same hike as us- so random!

Hooray for my Moby wrap--it makes it so easy to carry this little stinker around :)

This is the waterfall that we hiked to. It also continued on in front of where we're standing here. It was soo pretty and peaceful.

And of course, last weekend was also Jamie's first Halloween. I really wanted to dress him up but didn't want to spend a lot of money on a costume when he's too young to go trick-or-treating, so I made him this pirate costume with some cheap red and black fabric. I used a plain white onesie he already had and just added a skull and crossbones. I didn't have a pattern for the pants and just modeled them on a pair he already has, so I'm glad no one can see the seams, but I love how it all turned out!