My favorite time of year!

So it's my favorite time of year! Christmas is so fun. Nothing is better than getting together with family and talking about good memories and decorating everything together! :) Growing up, we always spent Christmas at my grandma's house..and she would decorate every room in her house and it was so beautiful! Christmas this year will be very different however, Jonathan wont be here. He will be with his dad in Japan, so it will be my first Christmas away from him. It will be intresting, to say the least. The day after thanksgiving, Cj and I were out hanging up our Christmas lights and putting up our REAL Christmas tree! Yay!! Last year we woke up at 4 am to get a real tree from the BX in Okinawa, because they sold out so fast. My husband was determined to get a real one last year... haha! We did. This year, there was no waking up at 4 am and waiting in line. We drove right to the tree farm and picked one out! I was a little concerned at first with a very mobile baby and a real Christmas tree...as anyone could guess..I was worried about pine needles that shed endlessly from the tree daily and a baby who puts every little thing in his mouth thinking it's food! So far, so good. I have ran the vacuum every day, however, also. I am very excited to have my family come down to Arizona for Christmas! It has been YEARS since I have spent Christmas with them. Although, I was hoping to see a little snow on Christmas morning ( because it's just NOT the same without it--I will be taking a trip up the mountain to see snow). As soon as I am happy with the way the house looks, I will be posting a finished picture of it! I am not done putting up lights outside ( Cj thinks we are). So, pictures to come! In the mean time..while putting up the tree and drinking hot chocolate ( so yummy!) Alek found the garlin and thought it was the best thing ever! Ahhh the simple things, right?! He got all wrapped up in it and every time he grabbed ahold of it, he would let out this loud belly laugh and roll over onto it. Haha! It was the funniest thing to watch. I was worried about him putting the garlin in his mouth ( I am such a mom, I know), but surprisingly, he was not fond of the texture of it all. So he never tried to eat it..thank god. So anyway, I had to get pictures, of course. And...how can he go through life without a naked baby butt picture!? It was so cute, I couldn't pass it up. Now to store these away until he is about 16 and show all those girls! ;)

Decorating....

6 months

Alek's version of crawling.

He LOVES watching his baby einstein videos. ( They are my new best friend!)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

It's hard to believe it is that time of year again! This time, we get to celebrate the holidays in the States! In Okinawa, you have all branches of the military shopping at one store, the base exchange. You can imagine what that was like during the holiday season..it was pretty much a suicide mission! So anyway, we are glad to be back in the states for the holiday season. I am so thankful to have my family close to me (within a couple hours flight anyway). We are doing a low key thanksgiving this year, for once. We decided to just have it be us, since every other year it has been a huge gathering, which dont get me wrong is nice, but I am looking forward to not " stressing" over everything in the kitchen this year! We are not doing the "traditional" turkey, instead we are doing ham for Thanksgiving and duck for Christmas. Yummy! I am so extremely thankful to have such a great family and wonderful friends! I count my blessings every day, I have two handsome little guys that are full of energy and healthy. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Just a little update. Alek is doing good, he has figured out how to get around in his walker ( as you can see in the video). Sometimes he will just take off in that thing and run! It's hilarious, he is bull legged and he takes off running. :) He is doing good though, doing something new every day and amazing all of us! A little bummed out because the Michigan trip wont be happening this month. Some other things came up that I need to attend to. But I will keep everyone updated!

So a friend got Alek this little thing you can put food or whatever you want in, and he can chew on it. We put a pedialyte popsicle in it, and he loved it. He couldnt figure out why it was so cold and was getting so mad! haha! His teeth are hurting him right now, so I am willing to try anything to help make his teeth feel better ( and me get some extra sleep). :)

Pictures of J

Swimming before going trick or treating?? He is definetly NOT in Michigan. :)

Silly...

Darth Vadar!!

So Alek finally decided to sit up on his own today! A very excited mommy tooks lots of pictures, but here is one. :) Yay Alek!

Sitting up

Jonathan is coming home!

Jonathan will be here in November, and I could not be more excited!!! It has been way too long ( 5 months and 4 days to be exact). We are heading up to Michigan for Thanksgiving, we decided to drive because we have to bring back some furniture of mine I left at my parents house before moving to Japan. Sooo...it will be intresting making a trip clear across the U.S. with a 5 month old little boy who absolutly HATES riding in his car seat. Yay! But we are excited, I have not been back home since 2005. I am looking forward to it. And of course CJ cant wait to go hunting! So right after poor Jonathan gets off the hellacious 19 hour flight from Okinawa to here, he will have to turn around two days later and get in a car for 2-3 days driving. Poor Jonathan. We are hoping for snow on the ground for thanksgiving, I just miss it enough to play in it for a few days and then turn around and come back to my warm weather in Arizona! :)

In the pictures above, Jonathan in his costume as a "fighter pilot", at school, and on his dirt bike.

After being in Japan for as long as we were, I was pretty excited about the fact we could actually go to an apple orchard/pumpkin patch! After hearing about everyone in MI going to one, I decided to google it and see if there was one here in Tucson ( or anywhere in Arizona), and to my luck there was ONE in the entire state. About an hour and a half away. I told CJ about it, and decided we would go over the weekend. Come to find out, he has never been to an apple orchard! Crazzzy. I thought everyone has been to an apple orchard. Those Floridians dont know how to do fall time apparantly. :) That is a must in the month of October! So we went and it was so much fun. Alek is only 5 months old and obviously couldnt really do much, but he seemed to really enjoy it! He went on his first hayride experience. It was a lot of fun. We were able to pick all this fresh produce, and I think we pretty much got a little bit of everything and it wasnt over $20. It was a lot of fun. And of course, we got the fresh apple cidar ( Cj has never had that either). Sheltered!!! Im telling you. So anyway, it was a good time and we will definetly be going back next year!

At the end, Alek was most definetly ready to go. But on our way out we passed a sunflower field. And of course, I wanted one but the entire field was swormed with bees. It was crazy. And if you know me, you would know that I DO NOT under any circumstances, do bees or spiders. So CJ volunteered himself ( seriously) to go into the bee trap and pick me a flower! What a sweet guy. I couldnt take a picture because I had my hands full with baby and vegetables, but it was a great picture. Cj in the middle a sunflower field dodging mad bees to pick me a flower! Thanks hunny! :)

It's fall time!!

My photography skills...still working on it.

5 months?! Already?!!??!!!!

I am truly blessed to have such a great family. I was for SURE when I found out I was pregnant with Alek that he might just be a very difficult child! Jonathan was SO easy when he was a baby, so I was for sure that Alek was not going be so easy. I do have to say, he is a very easy going little guy ( or should I say big guy?!). The only time he ever really cries is when he is tired. You would think he is loosing a limb, the kid screams so loud you will think something is really wrong until you lay him down and let him fight it out and literally, about 10 minutes later is passed out and not even a rock concert in his bedroom would wake him up!! He is the most amazing person. I know it is sooo "cliche" to say that children change your life. But noone really understands that until they carry a child for 9 months (or the spouse) and then hold that child in your arms for the first time. I am so very blessed to have two beautiful, intelligent, busy little boys! Alek amazes me every day with something new he has learned. We always buy toys that are just a little above his learning abilities, and it does not take him long to figure out how to use it or play with it. We have these interchangeable rings on his car seat that you can hang anywhere and adjust them. He has figured out how to change the rings out. It is absolutly amazing how smart he is! I could go on and on about my babies! But anyway, he will be 5 months old tomorrow!! Growing like a week. We have changed his baby food to "stage 2" baby food, because that stage 1 stuff just was CLEARLY not enough for this little monster. He is loving this new baby food. I was a little worried at first that his belly might not be able to handle it, but if I can puree some banana's up for him, why couldnt I give him this stage 2 food? It is pretty much the same. So, come to find out, he loves it. There is so much more of a variety with the stage 2 as well. I gave him puree ham with vegetables the other night ( eww!!) and he did NOT like it. haha! He would push the spoon away and spit it back out. So that was a no go. But he loves chicken, vegatbles, sweet potatoes ( loves sweet potatoes!), any fruit, and pretty much everything else that is edible (except ham!). We are so very proud of how far he has come since his life changing experience of getting 80% of his colon taken out. You would never ever know he had anything like that done. Amazing. We are looking forward to letting the rest of the family meet him over the holidays.

Alek and daddy playing "peek-a-boo" through the door

Alek-bo-balic at 5 months old

Sorry this is such a mess. I tried a new layout ( I am new at this whole "blogging" thing) and it kind of messed everrrrything up. So I am currently trying to fix it up. Anytime tips? :)

Our little man...

:)

Beautiful view....

Attempting to calm Alek down-Cj looks so cute with the baby backpack on! haha!

Daddy and son reading time. :)

Alek's little chompers.

The first attempt at feeding himself

Wow....October 22nd Alek will be five months old. I can hardley believe it. Time goes so fast! I love every minute with him. Waking up to him, is the most amazing thing ever. I, of course, have a baby monitor in his room and one in mine. In the mornings, he doesnt wake up screaming or crying, he wakes up " talking". Usually to his fan or the picture on his wall, but it consists of " ba ba ba ba mmmmmmmbbbaaaa.....babababa ma ma ma" haha! I love it. Just random babble. But I will sit and listen to it and smile every morning when I hear it, then I will walk over to his room and peak my head over his crib. And he will look at me with a very surprised look like, " how did you hear me!?". This little handsome beast is eating 7oz. of formula and a jar of food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I thought for a while I was "over-feeding" so I tried to downsize on meals a little, and that did NOT go over well with him. So I just continue to feed him as much as he wants, when he wants. As he was eating his squash, he was trying very hard to control the spoon I was holding (apparantly I was not putting it in his mouth fast enough) so after a couple times of fighting his hand of the spoon so squash did not go flying everywhere, I let him take control of it. He actually impressed me, and did pretty well with it. At the end he had squash in his nose, on his eye lids, and in his ears but, hey, he fed himself!

He has been rolling over for about a month now, so now Im trying to work with him on crawling. As I was unpacking MORE boxes yesterday, I put a blanket on the floor with some toys and let him go. He sort of just rolled around the room a couple times, going back and forth from wall to wall....then he figured out he could use his toes to scoot himself around! Funny. Most kids start off doing the "army crawl" or just straight up " crawling". Nope not ours, he decides to use his toes to push himself. I will post a video of it soon. Entertaining to say the least.

So, as most of you know, Cj and I are always out doing something on the weekends. We really never have a weekend " around the house". This past weekend, we went up in the mountains and went fishing. (Yes, with Alek). We found out REALLY quick that he is not a fisherman. Cj and I took turns rocking, bouncing, feeding, burping, changing poopy diapers, and singing to Alek. Because there are not many lakes in Tucson, Arizona....the one lake we were at, everyone else was at as well. So I couldnt let Alek cry himself to sleep like I do at home. And as most of you know, he has QUITE the attitude when he is sleepy, you would think the kid is loosing a limb. So anyway, after about 15 minutes of pure screaming, and a few dirty looks from other people fishing, he fell sound asleep, and I put the worm on my hook...threw my line in the water and I had a fish on!! I was so excited, probably a little too excted over a 2 lbs rainbow trout. haha!

As for me, I am still looking for a job. Im pretty sure I posted my resume on every hiring website out there! It is very frustrating. So if I dont hear something in the next week, I am enrolling myself full time for nursing school and devoting myself to that. As for Jonathan, well....that is a work in progress and I will have him in no time. Definetly for Christmas. He is so excited to see Alek. Last time he saw him was when Alek was a week old! Cj is liking the A-10 world ( he was stationed here before Okinawa). I can say that I see him a lot more here than I did in Okinawa!

Alek....almost 4 months

I cannot believe he is almost 4 months. He has come so far and impressed us so much! He has his two bottom teeth in and is getting his two top ones. He seems to do alright with teething. It has been 7 years since I have had to deal with the whole baby teething thing! It seems like Iam new at it again! haha! But he doesnt really fuss a whole lot, just chews on his hands and drools everywhere. Poor baby! But he is doing really good. He is rolling everywhere. Its hard to change his diaper because he wants to move around! haha! he will roll over to his belly and kind of do a little army crawl type thing. Still hasnt figured out how to do it and go, but he is working on it! Right now, he just rolls to get where he needs to go! haha! He weighs about 16lbs ( he has made up for lost time!). He didnt get to eat for the first 26 days of his life, so he is definetly doing well now. He eats about 6 oz with rice in each bottle and one jar of baby food with each feeding. He has such a great personality. Alek is usually always in a good mood. Unless he is tired or hungrey. He is like his mommy and gets cranky when he is tired. :) He laughs about everything and it almost seems like he is trying to talk, he will look at the stickers on his wall and stare very hard at them and kind of make a " bbbbbb" sound. A little while before he starts talking.....but he is trying!