6 Months Old

Jeff and I went to his squadron's Change of Command dinner last weekend and had a great time! Check out all of those medals!!! Jeff was recently awarded the Bronze Star for his accomplishments in Iraq.



I still can't believe Cole is 6 months old! It just amazes me to see how much he learns and changes every week. Jeff and I are loving every minute.

He is becoming quite the typical boy...so active and physical all the time! When we hold him up in a standing position, he just wants to jump up and down like our laps are his trampoline. He still loves to be in his jumperoo, and sometimes he gets airborne, throwing his arms up in the air while he jumps!


He LOVES to eat! Pears, peaches, sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas...anything sweet, and he is in heaven! He usually screams if we are not feeding him fast enough, so we basically have to shovel it in with the spoon! I've been making his baby food homemade and storing it in the freezer. It's surprisingly easy (just boil and put in the food processor) and saves a lot of money! A bag of frozen carrots, for example, will make about 2 weeks of meals for the same cost as a 2-pack of Gerber carrots!

At his 6 month check up on August 20, he weighed 18 lbs, 8 oz and was 26.5 inches long. He has started riding in the stroller without the carseat, which makes me feel like he is all grown up! He loves it because now he can take in all of the sights when we go shopping.

He had a playdate the other day with our neighbor's son, Nick, who is only 2 weeks younger than Cole. It was so cute to watch them observe each other and even interact a bit.


Cole has both of his bottom teeth now. We have to watch out because he is always trying to chomp down on our fingers!

We are trying not to be super paranoid, but Jeff and I are quite worried about this flu season, and especially the swine flu. I'm not sure about the rest of the country, but it is already running rampant in Corpus Christi. Our neighbor, 4 houses down, actually died from the Swine Flu last month. We are very happy that we don't have to take Cole to "Mom's Day Out" like I had originally planned while I work. Instead, we have a babysitter at home or we take him to Staci's house and keep him out of the germ pool as much as possible. I never thought I'd be such an over-protective mom, but now I just feel like I can't be too careful! Why do total strangers at the grocery store feel the need to put their germy hands all over my baby?! ;)

On another subject, we are SO excited to have Mimi (my mom) coming to visit us this week! She will be here from Sept 1-8. I know we will have a lot of fun together and Cole will love having his Mimi here to spoil him. Maybe Jeff and I will even get to go out to celebrate his 31st birthday on Sept 3! Also, UGA football starts this weekend, so we have a lot to look forward to!

Also, two more friends of ours welcomed baby boys into the world recently! Jackson William Blight was born to Sarah and Steve on August 6 and Jack Christopher Gaillard was born last weekend to Katie and Chris. We can't wait to meet the little guys. Wow, this has been the year of boys!!!

Sitting Up

Cole is doing so well sitting up on his own! Here are a couple of videos I took this morning.

Oops...Mommy was supposed to be there to catch him! Let's try that again...

Milestones

I know, it has been far too long since my last post! This weekend it really hit me how much Cole has grown and changed since turning 5 months, and I realized the need to update the blog! Here are some of his accomplishments:

He is now sitting up on his own! He mostly does the "gorilla sit," but he can balance with no hands for a few seconds.

He is "creeping." Actually, it is more like "inching" like an inchworm. When he is on his belly, he pulls his legs up underneath him, digs his toes into the floor, and pushes himself forward.

He is learning to use a sippy cup!


He is eating lots of new foods. We recently introduced bananas, oatmeal, avocado, and applesauce. He loves the bananas and oatmeal. The avocado was not such a big hit, although he would eat it when mixed with bananas (strange combo, I know). He was a little skeptical of the applesauce, but I think it will grow on him!


He is really developing quite the personality. He is quite a ham and a real flirt, too! He has really become fascinated with the dogs and will reach out to pet them whenever they come near. Today, Jeff had him "riding" Dixie, which he thought was pretty funny!


And, the biggest milestone yet, HE HAS A TOOTH!!! It just appeared one day out of the blue! I can't seem to get a photo of it, because it is on the bottom and he always sticks his tongue out and covers it up when we try to look at it. :)

People area always commenting on how big Cole is, but I don't think Jeff and I realized quite how big until yesterday. We went to a squadron BBQ where there were at least 4 other babies around Cole's age. He seriously looked twice as big as all of them! So either the other 4 babies are small, or Cole is HUGE! We will see for sure at his next doctor's appointment on August 20, but I am guessing he will weigh close to 20 lbs. All I know is that my back is killing me from lugging him around and bending over to pick him up!

Here are Cole and Gavin catching some ZZZ's at the party yesterday. They remind me of two old men watching golf in their recliners!


Other recent milestones that I failed to blog about: I turned 30 on July 26!!! I still can't believe it! Also, Jeff and I had our 7 year anniversary on July 20. :) We celebrated by going out for a nice dinner and even had a babysitter. The next weekend we went to Austin for a quick weekend getaway.


Here are my boys having lunch in Austin.

Cole and Daddy on their laptops at the hotel.

That's all for now...more to come soon!