7 months

On June 25th Oliver turned 7-months-old! The days are flying by! There isn't a whole lot of new stuff to say about Oliver this month. He's still working on the same skills he was working on last month.

Look how tight those pants are on him!

Oliver's sleep at night has lengthened since we were in Kansas. He now will mostly sleep from 7 p.m. until 8 a.m. Every few nights or so he'll wake up anywhere from 3:30 a.m. until about 6 a.m. wanting a bottle. We'll feed him and then he'll go back to sleep. He definitely likes to sleep in (more than Miles ever did). He is all over the place with the length of his naps. Some days his naps are only 30 minutes long and other days he'll take 1-1/2 to 2 hour naps.

He isn't real interested in sitting on his own so he's still doing the same things he was last month in the sitting department. I try to encourage him to sit on his own at least once a day, but it doesn't last long. He'd rather be in his bouncer jumping or on his tummy working on pushing himself up on to his hands and knees. He is getting better about getting his knees under him in the crawling position. I hope crawling is still a long ways off though. I'm not ready for a mobile baby!

His tooth count is now up to three (two on the bottom and one on the top). His second top tooth is so close to breaking through the skin though. 

He is wearing a size 4 diaper now and is wearing size 12 month clothing, but all of his clothes are getting tight on him.

So far he's tried sweet potatoes, squash, peas, and carrots. He loved everything but the carrots. It wasn't an instant favorite for him.

I gave him another hair cut this month so he wouldn't look like he was wearing a toupee as much. It looks a lot better now and is more uniform in length. 

His stats from his 6 month doctor's appointment (which actually didn't happen until he was 6 months and 3 weeks old) were as follows: He weighed 20 lbs 9 oz, which is the 86th percentile. He was 29 inches long, which is the 99th percentile. See, he's a big boy! He also got his 6 month immunizations at the health department after we returned home from Kansas.

We love him to death and are so blessed by his happy demeanor and sweet spirit! He's such a fun baby.

Click here to see Miles at 7 months.

Our Trip to Kansas (part 2)

After visiting with Oliver's birth parents, we went to JCPenney's to have Oliver's six month photos done. I also wanted a professional family picture done since we hadn't done that yet in Oliver's little life. I was less than impressed with our photographer, which is unfortunate because we've had great photographers there before, but we ended up with a few decent pictures anyway.

On Thursday, May 29th we headed to my aunt and uncle's house in Missouri. We spent a couple of days with them enjoying their beautiful house on the lake. Uncle George had promised to take Miles out in his fishing boat and Miles was so excited! At first I think Miles was confused because the only other boat he had been on prior to this was my dad's ski boat. Miles thought George's fishing boat was a bit small, but he had a blast anyway. He wanted to get out and go swimming (like we do in the ski boat), but he wasn't allowed because of the logistics of getting him in and out of the boat. He was a bit disappointed, but I think he enjoyed riding in the boat just as much. They got to see a snake, a bunch of herons, and caught a couple of fish! We love going to visit Cathy and George because our trips are always full of GREAT food, good conversation, and fun!

Gettin' ready to go boatin'

Hauling the boat down to the lake

Getting closer

Off they go!

On Sunday, June 1st we attended my grandpa's graveside service in Belleville, KS. My grandpa passed away back in December. He was cremated in Wichita, but wanted his remains to be buried in Belleville where he grew up. Although his funeral was held in Wichita shortly after his passing, my grandma wanted to hold a small graveside service for him in Belleville when the weather warmed up. Unfortunately my grandma wasn't feeling very well, but I think it was a very nice service. A few of their Belleville friends were even able to attend.

The next week we spent some of our time helping my mom find a little fishing boat to use on her lake. We also went in to Wichita and spent a couple of days with my grandma helping her get ready for her garage sale. I thought we were going to be able to help with the actual garage sale, but I had misunderstood the dates so we weren't there for the actual sale, but we were able to help her get a lot of it set up and priced so that she had less to do after we left.

On Saturday, June 7th we invited my brother's girls (Keaghan & Laiken) out to my mom's house to spend some time with us at the lake. Miles woke up with diarrhea and complaints of not feeling well, but he wanted to see "his girls" so bad that he plowed through any yucky feelings he had. He ended up puking twice that morning as well. Poor guy! 

Dave took the three of them out on the lake in the new boat. I'm not sure Keaghan and Laiken enjoyed it all that much, but Miles had a blast! He just loves spending time with those two girls. They also did a lot of playing outside and running around. The girls were excited to swim in the lake, but once they saw how "dirty" it was, quickly changed their mind. I can't blame them, I'm not a huge fan of swimming in lakes either!

Cruisin' around the lake

Sunday brought the yucky illness that Miles had to Oliver. Now they both had diarrhea and were puking! Not a fun way to end our time in Kansas. We didn't leave for home until Tuesday, June 10th so that I could pick up our pictures from JCPenney and also hoping both of the boys would rebound quickly. Our trip home was quite eventful because they were both still sick. It, in fact, took us two days to get home when it is normally only about a 12 hour trip with kids. We were constantly stopping to change Oliver's diaper and to encourage Miles to use the restroom. Miles ended up with major gas pains because he was so scared that if he tooted he'd get diarrhea in his underwear. It was probably the most stressful trip I've ever experienced. I was one worried momma!

We could've stayed in Kansas until they both recovered (since both Dave and I have no jobs right now), but we were so hopeful they'd get over it quickly and we were trying to make it back for Oliver's surgery that we ended up cancelling anyway because our current insurance is so crappy and wasn't going to cover any of it. Once being home the boys did both start feeling better, but it was a couple of days before that happened.

We had a wonderful time in Kansas and I'm so glad we were able to go and spend that time with friends and family! We appreciate everyone's hospitality! We couldn't have asked for a better trip (well, except maybe the boys not getting sick at the end!).

Our trip to Kansas (part 1)

On Friday, May 23rd (after Dave and Miles were done with school for the year) we left for Kansas. A trip that normally takes about 10-1/2 hours took us 14 hours. It's hard to travel with a baby! Oliver likes to eat and so every three hours we had to stop and feed him. I can't imagine having to sit in those car seats for very long though either so it was good to get them out of the car every now and then to stretch and burn some energy off. It was late when we got to my mom's and both boys were sleeping but quickly woke up to say hi to grandma.

Couldn't resist a picture of my sleeping boys

The next day one of my dear friends from high school was getting married. We spent the morning at my mom's relaxing and getting the boys settled in before heading to the wedding. My mom agreed to watch both boys for us so we could go and have a nice evening together. It was a beautiful wedding and a lovely evening hanging out with old friends. We even got to see Sarah (the person responsible for connecting us with Oliver's birth mom) again! A great time was had by all!

Don't they look so happy? I'm so excited for both of them!

The beautiful bride

Bev, Jill, Me, & Erika

Dave and I have been wanting to visit the Brookville Hotel again in Abilene, KS. They serve the most delicious homestyle chicken dinner with my favorite biscuits in the world and the best cream corn! My mom had made arrangements for all of us to drive up there for dinner on Sunday, May 25th. Abilene is about an hour away from my mom's, but the drive is worth it!

Dave giving Oliver some mashed taters

Miles likes the biscuits too

My plate

The next day was Memorial Day. My dad invited us and my grandma out to his place for lunch. We had more fried chicken. It just doesn't feel like summer without fried chicken though. You just can't get too much. I, unfortunately, didn't get any pictures. My dad has 10 acres and Miles loves to play in the yard. He was one dirty little boy by the time we left! Again, fun was had by all.

The next day was a R&R day for us. We stayed close to my mom's new house. She is now renting a house on a lake near Marion, KS. It's a cute place with lots of fun things to do with the lake near by. The only bad part is that it is so far away. It basically takes an hour (one-way) to get to the places we want/need to go like Wichita, etc. By the time our trip was over, we felt like we had covered most of the State of Kansas! Since we had nothing officially planned that day, we took Miles down to the beach and let him play in the water for a bit. He loves the water! What a fun thing to do at Grandma's.

Splashing around

Oliver hangin' out

On Wednesday, May 28th we spent the majority of the day in Wichita. We met Oliver's birth parents at one of the local malls that has a play place. Miles got to run around and play with other children while we got to hang out with Kallou and Shannon. Oliver initiated Shannon by puking on him several times! Somehow Kallou managed to not get any on her. We even got to meet Oliver's birth grandfather (Kallou's dad) for the first time. It was nice to meet him and catch up with Kallou and Shannon. I hope we always have a close relationship with them! We sure do love and appreciate them very much. They even brought Oliver a new toy that he loves to try and eat!

Shannon & Oliver

Shannon, Kallou, & Oliver

Oliver meeting his birth grandfather

May

We started off the month with a trip to Utah. Dave had a four day weekend so we took advantage of that and went on a road trip. A former co-worker of Dave's hosted us in Provo. We love spending time with Mark and his wife, Debbie. They are wonderful people who graciously opened their house to us. We had a very nice visit, but it wasn't very long. We left on Thursday and returned home to Colorado on Friday so that we could go to Miles' Parent/Teacher conference.

Our primary reason for our quick trip to Utah was so Dave could officially meet the principal in person at the middle school that he'll be teaching at next year. He did a Skype interview with her and was offered the position, but never got the chance to meet her in person. He's very excited about this new opportunity and we're very excited to be moving back to Provo this summer!

At Miles' Parent/Teacher conference we learned that he is right on track for being 4-1/2 years old. The other kids in his class are all 5 years old and he is a bit behind them, but he's younger than them. His teacher thinks that another year of preschool will be good for him. Because of his September birthday he can't start kindergarten for another year anyway. She encouraged us to work with him over the summer on his letters and numbers recognition and fine motor skills.

On May 11th we celebrated two holidays in our house; our 14th wedding anniversary and Mother's Day. I definitely felt like one special lady! My mom drove out for the occasion and watched the boys on Friday night so Dave and I could have a date night. We ate dinner at a very good Chinese restaurant in Grand Junction and then went and saw the movie "The Other Woman." Dave and I often don't see movies in the theater because we think they are way overpriced, but it was nice to see a movie on the big screen. The movie was pretty funny and I enjoyed listening to Dave laugh!

Dave got me these beautiful roses for our anniversary

For Mother's Day, Miles made me this cute plaster of Paris hand-print wall hanging at school . At first I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but after reading the poem on the back I realized it was a print of his fist like he was holding a bouquet of flowers. So precious!

On Saturday, May 17th we enjoyed a beautiful Saturday morning on the Monument. It was our last Saturday in town before our trip to Kansas. We decided to hike to the first pool on the No Thorough Fare Trail. On our other hike last month we did part of this hike, but didn't go all of the way to the pool. We were excited to see what the pool was exactly. We had such nice weather and the hike was overall pretty flat. It took us longer than we expected though so on the way back we had a hungry baby who was crying for his bottle and a 4-year-old who was tired and really wanted one of us to carry him back, which wasn't even an option.

Oliver in his new backpack

Tree growing out of a rock

The pool

Family picture (Oliver had fallen asleep so you can barely see him)

Hiking

Miles wanted a picture of him by this tunnel, but he was too scared to get too close!

Miles last day of preschool for the year was Wednesday, May 21st and Dave finished up teaching for the year on Thursday, May 22nd. It's hard to believe that another school year has come and gone! I think both of the boys are ready for a break, but I'm sure they'll both be ready to go back to school before too much time has passed!

While Miles was at his last day of preschool, I took Oliver to a follow-up appointment with a pediatric surgeon. He's had a sore down by his anus almost since birth and his pediatrician has been keeping an eye on it. A couple of months ago he started worrying that it might be an anal fistula so he referred us to a pediatric surgeon. At the first visit the surgeon didn't believe that was what it was, but by the follow-up appointment he was convinced it was an anal fistula. Oliver has been scheduled for surgery on Thursday, June 12th. According to the surgeon it is an easy out-patient surgery and that we should only be at the surgery center for about two hours. Crossing our fingers all goes well!

And that takes us up to our trip to Kansas, which will come in a separate post.

In closing, here are a few random pictures of Oliver taken over the month of May.

His 1st tooth with the 2nd one almost in as well

Mohawk

We love our shades!

He's figured out he likes to sleep on his tummy

And because I'll probably forget to mention this on our trip to Kansas post, Oliver got his second tooth (the other front bottom tooth) on Tuesday, May 27th.

6 months

On Sunday Oliver turned 6 months old! Because of our trip to Kansas, I had to postpone his 6 month doctor's appointment so I don't have his length and weight statistics yet, but I'll post those later. Let's just say he's a big boy!

Here are a few things he's doing now:

• He can roll over from his back to his tummy and now prefers to sleep on his tummy. He's managed to accidentally roll from his tummy to his back a couple of times.
• We finally took the time to sleep train Oliver and took his binky away and stopped swaddling him. Man, what a difference that has made! We both agree that he seems calmer without his binky and he is even sleeping better at night without it. He now sleeps from about 7 p.m. to around 4 a.m. He wants a bottle, but then will go back to sleep. He had a few mornings where he decided he wanted to be up at 5 a.m., but we've encouraged him to sleep a little bit longer and so far that has worked. He'll wake up anywhere between 6:30 and 8 a.m. typically. For a week or so he would wake up ticked off because he was on his tummy and couldn't get to his back, but that doesn't bother him as much anymore.
• He isn't the best nap taker in the world and only likes to sleep for about 30-45 mins. at a time. We give him about three naps a day and sometimes four if he's had lots of short naps. He will occasionally take a long nap, but he has to be pretty darn tired.
• He isn't quite sitting on his own yet. He likes to throw himself back when he's sitting so we have to be close by so he doesn't hurt himself. He just doesn't quite have the balance figured out yet to sit unassisted.
• Oliver can hold his own bottle, but he'll only do it for a short amount of time. He'd rather hold on to your fingers instead.
• He is very interested in his toes and tries his hardest to get them to his mouth, but his chubby tummy gets in the way.
• He can cover a lot of ground while lying on the floor just by rolling around. He is a wiggle worm!
• Oliver loves to bounce and is very happy when placed in his Little Einstein Activity Jumper. He can play in that thing for a very long period of time.
• He is still a very happy baby and loves to smile at people. He has such a sweet demeanor! Everyone still comments on his red hair and his gorgeous blue eyes.
• He is now in a size 3 diaper and is wearing size 12 month clothes.

If you're interested, click here to see Miles at 6 months old.

He's 5 months old

Last Friday, Oliver turned 5 months old. With Miles the months just flew by so fast. Every time I posted his accomplishments for the month, I could hardly believe it had been another month. Time doesn't seem to be going as fast with Oliver. I think with him being our second child (and probably our last) I try to savor each day more and enjoy his baby state. With Miles I was so anxious for him to move on to the next step that I don't think I fully enjoyed all the steps along the way. I'm doing things a little different this time, or at least trying!

I know I've said it before, but Oliver is such a happy little guy! He only starts to get cranky if he's extremely tired or if he's hungry. He can be easily distracted from that crankiness as well. All you really have to say is "Hi Oliver!" with a smile on your face and he'll flash his great smile back at you. He's such a cutie!

There was no doctor's appointment this month so I'm not sure where he is in the weight department, but he's a healthy "little" boy. His chubby thighs are so dang cute. You just can't help but squeeze them! He is wearing a size 3 diaper now and is in the 6-9 month clothing size. His short legs fit better in the 3 month clothing size, but his waist fits better in the 6-9 month size. 

He drinks 6 ounces of soy formula about every 3 hours during the day and will drink 8 ounces of formula a couple of times at night. It seems like every other night he'll sleep from 7 p.m. (his bedtime) until around 4 a.m. and then the next night he'll sleep from 7 p.m. until around 2 a.m. He gets up for the day between 6 and 7 a.m. depending on when he ate last and when his big brother gets up for the day. He isn't a fan of rice cereal so we've stopped giving it to him. We'll wait until he is 6 months old to start baby food.

His first tooth arrived on April 22nd (my brother's 40th birthday). It is his front bottom right tooth. It feels as if the left one isn't far behind.

He takes two naps that are about 1-1/2 to 2 hours long and a third nap in the late afternoon that is generally 1/2 to 1 hour long. He still loves to be swaddled and loves to sleep with his binky. Without the Woombie we would be toast. We keep trying to "teach" him how to sleep without being swaddled, but we end up giving in and putting him back in the Woombie because he will only sleep for 20-30 minutes un-swaddled. We also want to wean him from the binky sooner rather than later, but right now if he doesn't have the binky when he goes to sleep, he'll cry for hours. We'll keep trying to sleep train, but for now we are okay with how things are going. I guess with a second child we are more concerned about us getting sleep too that we haven't forced the issue like we did with Miles.

When lying on his back, Oliver will roll over on to his left side. He seems to favor that side. He won't go all the way over yet to his tummy, but he's getting closer. When on his tummy, he will tuck his knees up underneath him which causes him to face-plant sometimes. By doing this motion over and over and being the squirm-er that he is, he can move around on the floor to an extent. He definitely is not a fan of tummy-time though.

He still likes to sit up, but hasn't quite figured out the balance part of sitting up alone yet. We have to help him. The Bumbo comes in handy a lot, but it won't be long before his chubby little thighs won't fit in the leg openings!

He loves to reach for things out in front of him so we have to be careful if we are holding him while eating or drinking. If we are looking at our phones while holding him, he loves to play with it. He's helped me make some bad moves in Pet Rescue Saga a few times! Lol!

He seems to really love his older brother. Miles likes to play "hide-and-seek" a lot with him and it makes Oliver laugh and laugh. Oliver is also a big fan of his dad. When Dad gets home from work, Oliver is all smiles. Oliver is such a cute little guy! We love him SO much!

Click here if you want to see Miles at 5 months.