Four Months Old

Griffin is four months old today! He just gets cuter all the time...and more vocal about what he likes and doesn't like (hence the growling mentioned earlier). He's also started reaching out for things lately. In fact, we had a really sweet mother/son moment last night. I'm not sure what it is, but the last few nights Little Man has not wanted to go to bed easily. Normally, he just goes right to sleep, but the past three nights he's screamed and cried for at least 30 minutes when we put him to bed. Last night I'd had enough and went into his room to settle him down. While I was rocking him and trying to soothe him to sleep, he looked at me and reached up to touch my face....just melted my heart :) He got the sweetest little smile on his face as he touched my nose, cheek and lips. That little gesture made a difficult night so much better for both of us. After that, he was ready to sleep without further protest.

At four months, Griffin is rolling over quite a bit more, loves playing in his bouncer seat, and seems to spend more time just looking around and observing. He's discovered our dog Dixie and enjoys watching her walk around and play. He's started laughing a little and might be starting to teeth too. He gnaws on his thumb quite a bit and tries to put blankets and toys in his mouth all the time. No teeth peeking through yet, but I have a feeling they might be right around the corner. All in all, he's a happy boy and Ryan and I are really enjoying him these days.

Here are a few pictures from our recent visit at Poppa and Gigi's house. Aunt Amy will be leaving soon to start law school in Virginia, so we got together with the rest of the family for a bon voyage dinner. Unfortunately, Amy was sick, so she didn't really get to play with Griffin and I didn't get any pictures of them together that night. But Little Man had a good time showing off his new growling trick for the whole family. It was a fun night and I have a feeling we might be planning a road trip to Virginia before too long.

Waitress.....bring me another mai tai!!

Are you my hula dancer?

First Trip to Longview

This weekend we took a little trip to visit Ryan's parents in Longview. It's only 2.5 hours from Dallas, and we departed just before prime nap time, which should have meant an easy drive, but the Little Man was anything but happy on the ride out there. Napping was apparently not on his itinerary. We stopped for a diaper change, I sat in the back with him, played with the slightly annoying carseat toy, played lots of peek-a-boo, and he finally fell asleep about 20 minutes before we arrived. I finally figured out that he wanted to look at me, but not have me look at him. If he could just stare at me without me staring back, he could drift off to sleep and I guess have pleasant dreams about the beauty of Momma's chin?? After all that, I was glad to have a relaxing weekend with Griffin's Abby and Zayde.

We got to eat food from some of our favorite Longview spots (Pizza King and Bodacious BBQ), Griffin showed off his new growling skill (adorable and slightly disturbing at the same time...see video below), and he got to play in the smallest, cutest baby pool I've ever seen. Plus Ryan and I got to have a date night while the grandparents babysat. We had a great visit and happily, the ride home was much easier. Griff must have been worn out from all the fun because he slept the entire way back.

Whew! Time for a break from all that fun :)

The amazing Growling Baby...

The Sweetest Sound

So the Little Man has been making all kinds of new sounds lately....but my favorite by far was his first laugh. Until today, he'd been giving us big, big smiles and accidental laughs (probably more like hiccups that I wanted to think were little laughs), but this morning we were playing in his nursery and I was rewarded with real laughing! The sweetest sound a mom can hear :)

Of course, I didn't have my camera with me, but I tried to recreate the moment and capture it on video. Below is the result. Mostly you just hear me laughing and making a whooshing noise, but there's a brief moment where you can hear Griff laugh too. Hopefully, it's just the first of many :)

I've also included a video of him rolling over since he's doing it much more consistently these days. He's starting to really get mad in this video....he'd already rolled over three times and was a little tired of the game. But I continued the torture so we'd have it on camera....I know, I can practically hear you sending in your nominations for Mother-of-the-Year right now :)

Summer

So far, this summer has been a fun season for us. I'm a little behind, so here's a catch-up post.

The last weekend in June, Ryan, Griffin and I packed up and took a mini road trip to South Texas for a family wedding. Ryan's cousin, Emily was getting married in Seguin and we thought it would be a great opportunity for Griffin to meet part of the Fitzhugh family. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding on the river, a little hot (read I was sweating like a pig and desperately trying to keep the baby cool), but very sweet.

Snuggle time with Zayde

Hangin' with Aunt B

Such a good little boy!

Griffin got to spend the night with his Abby and Zayde at the hotel...it was so nice to have a little time to ourselves!

The fun continued on the 4th of July, which we celebrated with the Parker clan at the lake house. I don't have too many pictures....the weather wasn't really cooperating on Saturday, so we stayed indoors most of the day. Then the boys put on their own fireworks show (unfortunately, it was past G's bedtime, so he stayed home with Aunt Jen). On Sunday, the big kids rode jet skis for a while, before we all packed up and headed home for some family time. It was a great, relaxing weekend!

Red, white and blue...all-American baby

Cute Mavs onesie Ben gave us...look how blonde that new hair is!!

Griffin did get to try his first few bites of rice cereal with GiGi...not really a fan yet, so we'll hold off a little longer. He just seems so hungry all the time, I was hoping something more substantial might tide him over. Oh well....all in good time. It was worth a shot.

Congratulations!

My sister-in-law got engaged this week! Congratulations Blair and Stephen!! Looking forward to a beautiful wedding.

Nursery Pics

I've been meaning to put up pictures of Griff's nursery for quite a while. So here you go....

I bought this glider from Wal-Mart, of all places. Great price and soooo comfy! Of course, we had to have some animal heads on the wall, just like Daddy :)

Elephant pictures I painted to match the nursery.

I also got a little crafty and knitted a blanket to match the bedding.

Ryan's mom made this adorable name hanger with extra bedding fabric!

How is that possible??

Yesterday was one of those days in Mommyland when I found myself asking, "How is it even possible for one little boy to produce so much ickiness?" As a first time mom, I knew there would be the occasional need for a wardrobe change with the little guy. Sure, fine, no problem. But yesterday was unprecedented. We went through not two, not three, but FOUR outfits before the day was done, not including the pajamas he woke up in and the other pajamas he went to sleep in (yes, we are the parents who only let their child wear pajamas one time before being washed).

The first casualty of the day was a onesie, lost to a major spit-up incident around 11:30 a.m. Then my mom dropped by for a quick visit, and while she was giving Griff his 3:30 p.m. bottle, he had a poop explosion....sorry GiGi! That must be a sign of love, because he did the same thing to Ryan's mom a few weeks ago. So there went outfit #2. By the way, I don't know how you people who are into the cloth diaper thing do it - but kudos to you for being willing to clean that stuff up all the time :)

Then during a short nap around 5:00 p.m., outfit #3 went down to magical, gravity-defying pee. So, by the time Ryan got home from work, we were on clothing choice #4 (which luckily survived until bedtime). We do have lots of cute clothes in Griff's closet, but really, do we have to wear ALL of them in one day?!