18 weeks!

Micah is getting a little bored with our weekly tradition. :) Actually, we didn't have a chance to take the picture until around 9:00 last night, and he had already been asleep for two hours while out to dinner with friends. When we took him out of his car seat, he was ready to go for his picture...except for the yawning! We've been in Pennsylvania since Christmas Day. We're enjoying seeing family and friends, and everyone is loving seeing Micah in person and commenting on how big he is. Yeah, he is. In the weekly picture above, he's wearing overalls that are size 12 months. They're a little big on him, but not too big not to wear! Below are some pictures from our Christmas at home and a couple shots from our time in PA so far. For Christmas, we got Heinz and Samson bones that were a little ambitious, even for champion bone-chewers like they are! Each bone was two feet long. We had breakfast one morning with our friends Ben and Sue and their daughter Karis. This was the first time they met Micah. Hopefully we'll be able to visit them soon in their new home in Wisconsin! I just loved this shot of Micah in his little snowsuit and hat. He's looking pretty good! We (well, I insisted) on bringing all of Micah's winter clothes with us, almost putting us over the weight limit for getting the bag on the plane. But he has all these great outfits and I wanted him to have a chance to wear them. We'll get them all in if it drives us crazy!

Here's Daddy helping Micah practice standing. He's going to be off and running before we know it!What a sweet face...

It's still technically Friday...

This is our big Steeler fan at 17 weeks. We're starting to notice the milestones being met one after the other. Micah's just about ready to roll over, he's starting to sit up (see pictures below), and when you put him on his stomach, he's starting to inch himself forward. It's crazy how fast he's growing. Plus if you believe the picture below, he's really into reading already - look at how he's studying the sign! Here are some other random pictures from Micah during the week. He was so tired while he was eating that he just fell asleep right there in his high chair. In his cute bathrobe! The bib says it all - Micah's wondering if he can trade in the weird cereal for some milk! I just thought this one was cute. I took it this morning while Micah was playing in his standup thing.

First time with solid food!

Here's the progression of events during Micah's first experience with rice cereal. Comments about each picture are located beneath the photo. I might be 20ish pounds, but I'm still only four months old and maybe I'm a little too little for this new chair! Where's my mommy's or daddy's lap and, more importantly, where's that yummy bottle? I'm not sure how I feel about this stuff. It tastes diferent and the texture's a little funny. What did I do to deserve this new meal? I might be starting to like this stuff...if only I could keep some of it in my mouth. Ahhh, now this is much better! No matter what they feed me, it still makes me sleepy!

16 weeks

Before... and after! Micah is doing really well sitting up when he's supported, but he still hasn't quite gotten control over the muscles that can keep him upright! He's working on it though. In the meantime, he'll keep crinkling the papers that have his age on them. :) One of the greatest things about Micah these days is that he is chatting with us a lot. The picture above is a little blurry, but it's of him really chatting up a storm. He's also learning to really prop himself up on his forearms and can roll about halfway from his stomach to his back. Soon he'll be rolling all over the house. I included the picture above because, if you click on it to zoom in, you'll see a long string of drool coming from Micah's mouth. Besides rolling over, Micah's other new trick is growing teeth. There are two little white marks on his lower gums, and I'm assuming that they're teeth, and that they would also explain his unexplained fussiness and lack of desire to nap the last few days. Not to mention the extreme drool that's been going on! If they are teeth, we hope that they come in without too much pain.

Finally seeing (a free) Santa!

This evening, Micah accompanied his Dad to the annual preschool pagaent at First Pres. Micah got to meet Santa! Santa was very kind and took a quick picture with Micah before he went out to greet the other kids. If you look closely, you'll see that the size 6-9 months jeans that Micah has on don't quite fit and there's a little more of his gut showing than there should be! On Monday, we went to Disney for our annual trip to see the Osborne Family Dancing Lights at MGM, complete with fake snow, and to EPCOT to see the candlelight processional where they tell the Christmas story. We heard the Harlem Gospel Choir at MGM and got great seats thanks to Tim's friend Jason who works at MGM now. After he got used to the volume, Micah loved it. Steven Curtis Chapman read the Christmas story during the candlelight processional and it was so great to see him and to hear the choirs. Micah was so excited that he didn't fall asleep during the performance at all, despite the fact that it was definitely going on past his bedtime. He fell asleep as soon as it was over. The next generation of Steven Curtis Chapman fans is born! This is a picture of Micah in his walker thing. You can see that his feet are barely touching the floor, but Micah loves to stand so we figured that he would really like just being in it. So far he does, and he's starting to figure out how to turn the wheel already!

Steeler Santa

So the Steelers didn't break the Patriots' winning streak, but Micah looked cute in his Steelers outfit! Tonight was the annual Christmas dinner and program at Tim's church so I dressed Micah in his Steelers garb but conceded it was Christmas and put the Santa hat on his head. Maybe not christian, but still cute! Actually, he looks a little mad in this picture. I think I took it right after the Steelers touched the ball on the punt and lost possession. Micah was a little ticked at his team. Since Micah loves to stand (holding on to our fingers, of course) we thought we would set up his walker thing a little earlier than the box suggests. Turns out that even though Micah seems to be big for his age, he's too little for this toy just yet. His feet can't quite touch the ground, but we have a feeling he'll like it anyway. He loves the ones in the church nursery. The dogs can't figure it out yet - it makes a lot of sounds that they're not used to yet. Micah and Mommy hanging out before bedtime. It's a little bright as the camera was a little too close to its subject!

Micah is 15 weeks old

I posted two pictures this week because, although I liked the one on top better, he's hiding his face and I wanted those who want to see his face to be able to see it. Hence the one on the bottom. Micah's personality is really starting to develop and it's so fun to get to know him. He smiles a lot now, loves to babble at us, is eating nonstop, and learning how to take naps. He certainly has his moments that drive us insane - I'm not going to be one of those parents who says that everything is great all the time. But as a whole, he brings us such a joy and has really readily accommodated himself to his parents' lives. Plus he's pretty cute. :) Here he is asleep on the couch. Apparently he was so tired that he needed help from his left hand to keep his right thumb in his mouth! Notice the laundry in the background. People warn you about lots of things when you're pregnant and anticipating parenthood, but I don't recall anyone accurately warning me about just how much laundry I would be doing. The one thing it's done is make me SOOO grateful for the invention of the washing machine. If I had to do all this by hand... Micah and Daddy enjoying a little playtime after dinner. Notice Micah's socks. He's finally started wearing them, but now the ones we have for him are too small so the heel portion of the sock often falls down to the middle of his foot. I guess we'll have to splurge for some new ones!

An Afternoon with Micah

Micah is working on his ability to sit up. He's not real happy about it, but he's physically building up the muscles to be able to do it soon. And while I don't want to rush him growing up in anyway, it will be really nice when he's able to sit in the front of the grocery cart and not have to be carried in his car seat! (Notice Micah's wearing long sleeves and pants. That's because it's winter in Florida - you know, it only went up to 70 degrees today so let's break out the winter clothes.) Here's a happy Micah after he's had his bottle. He's loving sucking on his fingers and thumbs. You can see that he's getting chubby. He doesn't miss a meal and, when he hits the four month mark on December 24, he can start eating rice cereal. We'll be sure to get some pictures of that as I'm sure more will be on Micah rather than in him. It's a little dark, but Micah and I were talking and I decided to grab the camera. The flash wasn't on, but I love it anyway!

Here it is...the weekly update

Two things to note in this week's picture:

1. The drool spot at the top of Micah's shirt. Drool is a constant part of our lives now, although we have yet to see any teeth as a result.

2. The fact that Micah seems poised to pat his rather rotund belly. At no other time in life is this cute, but we love it now!

These are two shots from last night. Micah really enjoyed his bottle before bedtime - that's the picture on the left. Notice the double chins! He's proudly working on his third. The picture on the right is him staring at one of his favorite things to look at. If you thought it was a nice toy that was given to him, you'd sadly be wrong. Instead, it's the light fixture above the dining room table. Whenever we have him standing on our laps, that's immediately where he looks. And he could stare at it for hours. I guess this is a prelude to what we'll experience later in life when he enjoys the boxes the toys come more than the actual toys.

Finally, I couldn't resist adding this picture. The dogs love to walk so much that it's gotten to the point where whenever Tim or I put on our tennis shoes, the dogs go beserk in hopes that we will take them with us wherever we might be going. This morning Tim got out his shoes in preparation to actually take the boys on a walk, but stopped before going so that he could get his coffee to brew while he was walking them. Wanting to ensure that he was NOT left out of the fun, Heinz lay down right in the middle of Tim's shoes and refused to move until Tim took them to put them on. He's an ornery dog, but he's pretty intelligent and how could you not love that face??

You better watch out...

Bored with school already??

This is a picture of Micah visiting my dad's former workplace. He retired in June - Dad, not Micah - and brought his new grandson in for a visit while we were in Pittsburgh. Micah tried to stay awake, but the visit came too close to naptime and he zonked right out, apparently only opening his eyes very briefly for the staff. Just so everyone at Mt. Lebanon High School knows, Micah's eyes are blue. :)

Tummy time!

One of the things I try to do with Micah everyday is have some tummy time. I haven't been as diligent as I should be with it because he hasn't really seemed to like it very much. But this morning he really started to take to it and was really working on lifting his head. Tell me, is this the cutest face in the world or what?

Oh, and here's a little portrait from our session yesterday. "Morning face" Micah in a Santa hat. We love it!

Christmas is coming to town

We set aside today to take a family picture at Sears, take Micah to see Santa, and decorate our home for Christmas. As the old saying goes, two out of three ain't bad. Turns out that it costs a minimum of $20 to have your picture taken with Santa. $20. My kid is 3 months old and will most likely not ask for anything unless Santa's a master at translating Micah's spit bubbles. I just wanted a cute picture of him with the guy in the red suit. For that price, I told Tim I would rent a Santa costume and plant him in a chair at the mall and he could let people take pictures of him with their kids for free. Oh, and if you do go to see the official Santa, the mall people have a big sign up asking you not to take pictures with your own camera because doing so may endanger Santa's ability to show up at the Brandon mall in future years. If you'd like to hear my thoughts on that, please feel free to email me directly and I'd be happy to expound on why I think this whole thing is the most hideous racket I've witnessed in a long time. My guess is that most of you can probably write that speech yourself. At any rate, the family picture turned out great and our home is now decorated appropriately as you can see by the pictures below. We're grateful for both of those things - oh, and finding a Santa hat that fits Micah! We took our family picture in jeans and white shirts and Micah was still wearing his when we decided to take this picture. We got a version of this at Sears, but neglected to order in favor of one we liked better. We recreated it at home though. Unfolding the tree. :( The pine scented candle was lit while we were doing this, and that makes it a little bit better. Micah supervised from his swing. Micah and Daddy in front of our tree!

Posing for the camera

Micah is really getting the hang of posing for the camera - already! He had just finished his breakfast on Friday morning and was looking at Tim for a while so I put my hand underneath his chin and he stayed that way for quite a while. We couldn't help but take a picture since he seemed like he really wanted to have it done!

13 weeks old

In the midst of updating the blog with our Thanskgiving snapshots, I almost forgot that it was Friday and sign day! Here it is. This was taken in the evening, which is not Micah's best time, but he managed to grin for us once so that we could get a good picture. Happy day after Thanksgiving to everyone!