two months.

didn't i just write the one month post?! how is time moving so fast?! 

thoughts on my two month old:

+ in month two jacob visited new york, maryland and massachusetts. i guess we can even count new hampshire since we pit stopped for an hour to visit our friends! he drove through pennsylvania, delaware and new jersey. that's not bad for two months of life, right?

+ jacob also decided it was time for a his first hike - a 1.1 mile climb to sterling pond in smuggler's notch.

+ he's slept for eight hours straight on two occasions. hopefully these occasions will become more frequent.

+ he's got a serious case of the smiles. what a smiley little man we have. it's so fun to sit him on our legs and get him to smile for minutes on end.

+ naps are our friends. it took me a little while to figure out that once changed and fed, if he's fussy, chances are he is tired. he loves his morning nap. he loves his afternoon nap. he loves his stroller nap on our nightly walk. so thankful for my napping, happy boy. when well-napped, his awake time is full of smiles and fun!

+ jacob loves his daddy. loves him. in fact, the only thing he wants right before bed is for his daddy to hold and rock him a little bit. we've read how it's not good to let such habits begin...but sometimes the little man needs a little extra snuggle and we don't think there is anything wrong with a little extra love...so forget all those don't rock your baby to sleep/don't snuggle your baby to sleep nonsense. we say...SNUGGLE AWAY! 

+ little man works like clockwork. he's on such a good schedule and it's so good to be able to predict when he'll be hungry and when he'll need his nap. makes life happy and easy.

thoughts on being parents for two months:

my friend told me that when i had jacob, after about five weeks the fog would lift. she wasn't kidding. after about five weeks, we were in our routine and life started to sail along smoothly. i'm not entirely sure what happened those first five weeks of jacob's life, but i do know that new parents should not be held accountable for anything that happens those first five weeks. what a blur of walking around in zombie like states. wow. now, though, i feel like we are fully functioning human beings again! it is awesome.

and have i mentioned...we love this little guy. each day we love him more and more. it's crazy to think that two months ago we were just meeting him. we can't imagine life without him.

thoughts on being a family of four (let's not forget beans!).

that face makes me feel about one thousand emotions all at once. being a mama and a daddy has completely changed everything...and it is awesome. there is really nothing like it. ry was on the phone with one of his best friends the other day who just told us they were expecting. all ry could tell him was that there is nothing like having the gift of a child come into your life. nothing. it's impossible to even start to put it into words. it's so good and it just gets better every single day. 

and that's all i've got. i can't put it into words, so i won't try. just know that we are loving this little man to pieces and we can't even begin to imagine life without him. God is so good to us.

to maryland and back.

on july 27th i turned 27. my wonderful husband likes going big for birthdays, so he decided a trip to see my mom was in order...with jacob jay in tow at the ripe old age of four weeks and three days. we figure why not get used to carting around the little man...no need to put life on hold. some of our hopes for him are to see the world, go on big adventures and learn through experiences. God is big. He exists all over the place, so we want Jacob to be free to go and see that. thus our determination to make sure we are examples of that (granted a trip to baltimore isn't a HUGE adventure normally, but a trip to baltimore with an infant is pretty big...). we don't want him to think we are unable to adventure because we had to stay home and were afraid to be out and about. we, instead, have found all the more reason to adventure because of this little man. so off we went...

our route took us from vermont to rochester the first night. we wanted to avoid NYC and i really wanted to introduce jacob to his great aunt and uncle and cousin. you see, when you live so far away from family, it's pretty sad when you have a baby and you can't see them love your little man...so we detoured to rochester despite it adding two hours to the trip. we got in around ten pm and popped into the great AC's to surprise her - she was pretty excited:

and here's cousin with the little man:

it was nice for jacob to see his tuffy and gramma, too, but since it was such a quick pit stop and my dad and pat were off to mexico for vacation at 6 am the next day, i didn't get any pictures of them with jacob. they hadn't seen him since the day he was born, so it was a nice random little visit for them, too.

we left just as the USWNT soccer game was starting (BUMMER!), but that didn't deter my boys from dressing appropriately:

we drove through PA, which i forgot to snap a pic of and then we were in maryland:

ahh so lovely to see mom and mike...even though we had just seen them! mom treated me to a pedicure while ry got some alone time with his little man - so nice for him after being in the car for so long!

jacob got to meet my brother, his uncle ricky, and they got to hang out and watch the olympics together:

jacob even snuck in some snooze cruise time with gigi:

we mostly just relaxed at my mom's house. she cooked us some yummy meals, we watched a lot of the olympics and jacob got to meet his uncle ricky and aunt jill (ricky's gf). it was a delightful little adventure - way too short - but delightful nonetheless. We left about midday on Monday and traveled a different route home...

over the delaware bridge:

into delaware:

through the dirty jerz:

past nyc:

said hi to giants stadium (and boo'd the giants...):

and stopped for the night at a hotel in clifton park, ny. fabulous - a king size bed JUST for jacob. well, that's what he thought. we kicked him out into his pack 'n play and stole the bed back from him.

we got into the hotel around 6 pm and convinced the hotel to allow us late check out because we had a newborn and weren't anxious to get him back in his car seat. translation: mommy wants to watch the USWNT game and can't do so while driving in the car. we ended up getting on the road at half time and made the trip back to vt. 

it was so nice to have a little family vacation and little man traveled oh so well! he slept most of the way and, while we had thrown him off his routine, he still did a GREAT job. he was fussier than normal, but that was to be expected. 

...and the little man says...guys, that trip made me sleepy...

one month.

*i wrote most of this last week when he actually turned one month old, however our adventure to baltimore and back delayed the posting of it.*

how is it possible that our sweet baby boy is already one month old?! 

one month stats:

9 lbs 3.5 oz (31st percentile)

21.4 cm (41st percentile)

skills he's perfected:

+ snuggling. oh newborn snuggles are the best. can they please last forever??? little man has a bit of reflux, which means he needs to stay upright after eating. this often leads to sleepy snuggles and we wouldn't want it any other way.

+ puking. my goodness is this boy good at that (thank you reflux)! i just took all the sheets/blankets/comforter to the laundromat just to come home, feed him, and have him puke all over the bed. lucky for me i had not yet put the sheets back on the bed, so now we have a pukey mattress. #fail?

+ we've got the pacifier down finally. life. saver.

+ we're working on the crib thing. little man is not such a fan yet, but we get some awake time in there...

+ eating. praise the Lord for a good nursing little man. took a little while to get into a rhythm, but he's getting much better at full meals.

+ listening to music. for some reason if he's fussy i can put on my chris tomlin pandora station and he'll quiet right down. i wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that i listened to this station non stop while working from home.

+ being alert. moving his head around. being gosh darn cute.

+looking just like his daddy.

+ growing. this is happening way way way too fast for our liking:

((most ridiculous shorts ever?? some day those will fit...but it might be winter by then!!))