The non-napper

 What he's really up to in there.

Seagull Squawk

I love this little video because I think it captures life at home pretty well.  Jack is "helping" with the laundry by kicking over my sacks of clean undies and stealing socks.  But this video shows a new high pitch squeal that he discovered a few days ago and uses constantly.  It's in an octave that hard to listen to for very long.

The Great Cloth Diaper Experiment!

I was always interested in checking out the world of modern cloth diapers, but I felt too overwhelmed to deal with it at the end of pregnancy and when Jack was a newborn. From the outside looking in, it seemed like a complicated universe with a lot of new vocabulary. I would overhear moms comparing pockets with prefolds, sized verses one-size and I would check out mentally, grateful that this was one mom-topic where I didn't have a stance. But 4 months later I'm much less overwhelmed by the idea, plus I have Elaine, my cloth diapering consultant and friend whose tried it for 6 months and can give me the tutorial. Plus there's an amazing online program that sends you a trail of different brands and types of cloth diapers to try for a month for a meager $10 fee!

Here's my loot! A bunch of BRAND NEW diapers with exciting names like Fuzzibuns, BumGenius, and Thirsties to wash, try, and return so that I can figure out if I want to take on this new responsibility. 

These things are supposed to be pretty bullet proof if you treat them right, lasting through multiple kids and adjusting to baby's changing size with snaps and elastic. They are supposed to save you quite a bit of cash in the long run if you wash them yourself, which is the plan.  I hope it works out and I find something that's easy to deal with and doesn't require me to haul mega boxes of diapers out of Costco every few weeks.  We'll see...

My little man doesn't seem to mind them

The "Megasaucer"

New Tastes

Furious Feet

Crazy lady with a camera

I feel like kind of a crazy mom here. We bought a nice camera right before Jack showed up to capture every moment, and it turned out to be a worthwhile purchase because I use it almost every day and love to play with all of the settings.  Then we got a coupon in the mail for cheap portraits at Sears, so I jumped on that and drug Dan and Jack to the mall, as though we needed more shots of baby. They sucker you in and try to get you to buy a bunch of portraits because you could never discard a smiling picture of your baby.  Luckily they didn't do a fabulous job, so there were only a few pictures that I really liked and I was able to resist the lure.  Today, less than a month after our Sears photo session, I was browsing in a new baby store called Buy Buy Baby and someone from the portrait studio approached me with the bait.  A free 8x10, since the studio was slow that afternoon.  What the heck?  So with no prior planning, without even agonizing over the perfect outfit, I did a come-as-you-are photo session with Jack, including a lot of jumping up and down, blowing on his toes, and ridiculous high-pitched voices to get him smiling.  He was looking at 3 adults doing all this and he was interested, but didn't reward us with many smiles. Then they wanted me in the picture too, and I hadn't exactly fancied up to go to the baby mega-store, but why not?  Again, luckily, they did a so-so job overall, but caught one really cute shot and I walked away an hour later spending less than $10 for my "free portrait", so I guess it was a success.  I realize that I'm probably just the sucker they're looking for, but I don't care. My mother reminded me that baby #2 someday will be lucky to ever have a portrait session, much less monthly visits to the department store to jump around in front of him/her for 40 minutes. 

For your viewing pleasure, here are the photos from Jack's 3 month portraits and today's will be ready in a few weeks.  Let me know if you want one because I have a fistful of wallets and I should probably give them to people or something cuz our fridge is all full.

Jump up

Chatty

 Just some everyday talking, and you can see the mood swing rapidly

Wedding Shower

We hosted a wedding shower for Brice and Lydia from our church group this weekend.  It was so much fun and here are some highlights.

Baby gear ready for the guests to arrive

Favors

4 finger chew

Emeline has a pretty bow

Jonah slept through most of the party.

The happy couple open gifts

The cupcakes stained our faces blue

Hmmm, Jack looks skeptical.

Charlie Brown

Dan calls Jack Charlie Brown in this shirt, and the pouty little faces pretty much reinforce the name.

Rubbing his eyes.  He's tired.

Play Group

These are Jack's friends from our play group that meets at parks around the area.  There are quite a few ladies to befriend.

Jack and Sarah

Trying to sit, but needs a hand.

Sitting success!

Emeline has the sitting thing down. Elaine looks proud.

Gracie with her mom Lianne.

Campbell with her mom Makenzie

Sisters Campbell and Hadley

The travel swing is a life saver at the park for getting Jackson to sleep.

Eating an elephant

 Jack's getting much better at hand play, but as you can see, he gets frustrated easily.

A Weekend Walk

We had a fun chance meeting with our pals the Zubers this weekend and walked out on a trail to an old barn with fun animals to look at.  Here Jack is looking at the Jersey cow.

Baby and cow

Dads and strollers at the sheep pen

Watching those big pigs from behind this protective blankie

Fam in front of the garden

Emeline and Jack check each other out

Dan and Wes

Baby giggles

Finally caught those cute little chuckles on camera.  He doesn't do it very often, but it's so sweet when he does laugh.  In this video he's laughing at my pony tail swinging over his head.  Love this little guy!

Baby doesn't feel good

Poor little guy caught a cold and we were all up a lot last night trying to help him feel better.  It's really sad to see him coughing and sneezing, plus it's a huge challenge to keep his nose somewhat clean because he hates when I wipe it.

Here are some pictures of the little man this morning.  Since it's a sick day, he gets to wear his jammies all day.

Trying to stay positive

 but feeling awful.

And to remember better days, here's mostly happy bath time yesterday when all was well in his world.

Traveling Man

The little guy is super active and always wiggling.  He starts off in the center of the blanket, I turn my back for a moment, and he's at the edge. Got to watch this one closely.

And his hands and feet are getting more coordinated all the time.

Playtime with the grandparents

Here's some cute shots from Grandma and Papa Barrett's house this weekend.

Jack always finds this little fountain very calming.

My sister with a neighborhood dog that ran over and was jumping all over us as we played on the grass with the baby.


And here's some shots of Dan's parents with Jack when he was about 6 weeks old.

 This includes cousins: Andrew (4), Jack (6 weeks), Nathan (1-1/2), Evan (3 weeks), Ben (6)

Grammie Cheryl

Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Laura with Evan

People seems to notice a resemblance between Dan and me, and his brother Jon and his wife Eileen.  It doesn't help when we go around dressed alike.

The whole group tries to look presentable at once. Not bad.