Late September

We don't have too much to report, just wanted to share some pictures of Alex from the past few weeks. We got a family picture in front of the B-52 that hopefully we'll get to see and share soon--but we have a few contraband in the cockpit photos we took first. Alex is eating some new finger foods, like cut up carrots, pasta, and pears, but he still totally loves Cheerios and Puffs. He's getting really good at picking them up himself. There is a cute video of him having family dinner time with his carrots and pasta all over the tray...we had to abandon the plate we started with or the walls would be covered. We also switched to a new inflatable bathtub and as long as we don't wait until he is too tired, he is starting to enjoy his baths (finally). He likes to sit up and play with his toys and splash...so there's a cute video of him playing...rated G, don't worry.

We did get to fly today to Bismarck for lunch and Alex did great in the plane, and we can finally put ear plugs in his ears and they stay instead of the cotton and sock headband you've seen in the previous pictures. Plus he's got his own headset on the way so hopefully that will provide even better noise protection (if he'll keep it on). He's also loving his jump n go (like a johnny jumps up) that goes in a doorway and he jumps in it a lot now---he loves to bounce and jump all the time, so this gives mom and dad's arms a break. We had a cute video of it, but the background noise of my pureeing food is not too pleasant, so we'll have to take another one and post it next time.

7 months old!!

Alex turned 7 months old today, so I got a little picture happy. Just lots of him playing with some toys and some the playground. His face is really red in some because he still has some excema on his cheeks, some days it looks better than others. But he also got a bite on his left cheek and it was really swollen this weekend, so it is actually looking much better now. Looks like he inherited my tendency to swell up from every bug bite and Andy said he did the same thing when he was little...at least he grew out of it, so maybe Alex will too.

He loves the swing at the playground and gets really excited about the phone, so I got him one his own to play with, which of course he tries to eat. He's tried his first meat with some chicken, but I think it is too dry for him. He's been making lots of "mmm" sounds, so he makes this mmm face that makes him look like a cabbage patch kid. I like it cuz sometimes it sounds like mama. He just looks at me funny when I say mama over and over and make the sign for it, but maybe he'll eventually catch on. That's about it for this week. Here's the pictures.

Badlands Trip and First Bears Game

I haven't been able to post recently because my camera connection started crashing my laptop since I downloaded Windows XP Service Pack 3. After 1 1/2 hours on the phone with Microsoft about the issue, it still wasn't fixed. They told me to download a new driver for the camera (printer did some thing), but I did that and it still crashes. So, now I'm working from the desktop for pictures. Fun stuff--aren't computers wonderful?

Ok, enough ranting. We flew down to Rapid City from Friday to Sunday on Labor Day weekend. It was a nice little family vacation to celebrate Andrea's birthday. It was pretty busy. The highlight of the trip was our hiking through the badlands at Badlands National Park. It was very hot but we went in the morning with Alex in the Baby Bjorn and had a good time. We ate dinner at two nice restaurants downtown and enjoyed the nice weather all weekend. We came back early Sunday and had some friends over Sunday night (Monday was a holiday) for a big dinner, drinks, and Singstar.

The week was pretty uneventful and then this past weekend, Andy and I went to the AF Ball while Heather and David watched Alex for us. (Bless their hearts because he still doesn't want to drink milk from a bottle or sippy cup!!) Sunday we had a bunch of people over to tailgate for the Bears first regular season game.

Alex is doing great eating lots of fruits and veggies and also likes little finger foods like Cheerios, Gerber puffs and wagonwheels, and little pieces of banana and cooked carrot. He still is working on learning to pick the little things up himself, so mostly we have to feed him those. He doesn't have any teeth poking through yet. He loves to help with the spoon during his meals, but often gets more of the food on his fingers and face (and hair and ears) than into his mouth. He still likes the sippy cup with water, diluted apple juice, and milk (as long as its not replacing a meal from mom). He's been doing better spending some time on his tummy and can turn himself side to side. From sitting, he reaches forward until he falls over to get things, but hasn't started to creep or rise up on his knees yet. He seems to have his first little cold, or it may just be allergies, I'm not sure which yet. He likes some new toys like his soft blocks and stacking rings and a new favorite pasttime is to walk around while we hold his hands. He almost had his first group daycare experience today while I was at MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers)--they provide free childcare there. But there were so many little ones at this first meeting of the year that several of us had to keep our babies on our laps--so he lucked out and got to stay with mom. He's been enjoying stopping at the little playgrounds on base during our walks and riding in the bucket swings and down the sliding boards. He is quite the little studmuffin and gets all kinds of comments from people when we are out. Some say he looks like the Gerber baby and some say like a Cabbage Patch Kid...funny! I had some pictures taken at Sears this week that turned out pretty good. Here's a link to the Sears Pics. I've also uploaded a few sets of our own pictures. Here are those links. Enjoy!

Badlands Trip

Late August

AF Ball and Bears Game