Jude 6 Months

Jude is officially one half of a year old; I can not believe my little baby boy isn't that little of a baby anymore! Time has gone by so fast and at the same time it feels as though Jude has been with us all along and I can't picture our little family without him!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this post will speak for itself :), so there will be little commentary and I will just let my baby boy shine!

Jude with aunt Becky & Kara when they stopped by on their way to Oregon

Jude will actually smile a little during a picture now, yay! Now I get to share that precious gift with you.

Jude had his 6 month appointment last Friday. Everything is going great; he is eating, sleeping, etc. just as he should and definitely growing! He is now 26.5 in, 15 lbs 6 oz, & his head is 17 in around (Yes that is inches & yes it is over half the length of his body! This proved what I already knew, Jude has a big head! ). I am so blessed to be able to be a stay at home mom, so that I can watch him change and develop every day!

Happy 6 Month Birthday Jude! It is such a precious gift that God has blessed us with the joy and privilege of getting to see more of the person He made you to be every day! 

To the Land of Endless Green

View of the Willamette Valley

The end of March Jude and I had the privilege of going to Oregon to visit my family for a week.  It was a wonderful trip, Jude got lots of chances to show off and get passed around to all the new faces. 

Jude with Uncle Stan, a dear family friend who has been a surrogate uncle to my
sister and I , and now to Jude.

This was the first time any of my friends and family, other than my parents and sister, had met Jude.  While we were there my parents had an open house for friends to come meet Jude and there was a dinner for the family that’s in the area to come over and spend some time with Jude.  

Jude and cousin Laura, she is about 6 months older.

Of course, they all thought he was wonderful and perfect, who would expect anything less from people fawning over a baby? J

Four generations

Jude with Aunt Elise

Jude with Grandpa

As always, it was refreshing to get a change a pace for a while, even though the trip was fairly busy.  Going back to “the land of endless green” never gets old, the dark cold rainy days, and the green, oh the marvelous green.  You have to understand if you have never been to Oregon (more specifically the Wilamette Valley), it is ALWAYS green.  The majority of plants and trees are some sort of evergreen that keep their leaves/ needles all winter and the remaining plants/ trees that are deciduous are covered in moss, so they are even green all winter.  That has been one of the hardest parts of living in Colorado the fact that instead of being endlessly green, the majority of the year everything is brown and looks dead. 

This trip I was able to experience all that an Oregon spring has to over, plus more!  On the 21^st when we headed toward the airport in Denver, it was sunny and 61 degrees.  On our way to parent’s house from the airport in Portland we were going 50 mph on the interstate because of heavy snow!  The rest of the trip varied from cold, dark and rainy to sunny cool spring days, it was wonderful!  

You may thing it is crazy, but I am totally in love with the rain, from the dark grey colds, the smell (yes rain does have a smell, especially if it hasn't rained in a while), the sound, and even the cold.  One of the sunny days (it might have actually been the only sunny day, it is Oregon after all J), we even took a trip to the Silver Creek Falls state park.  

Lodge at Silver Creek Falls, as you can see there was still quite a bit of snow here.

Grandpa, Mema (holding Jude), & Uncle Stan in front of the falls.

There we were truly able to experience the wonderful Oregon landscape, from the sloshy wet ground, to the evergreen forest that almost gives everything around it a green hue.  

Do you see the green hue? Granted this had a little extra green added in editing. 

I wasn't joking when I said even trees without leaves are green

Some people need to feel the vitamin D soak into their pores, I need to feel the cold misty air, and breathe in the fresh, damp, dust free air.

Since we left the day after Jude turned 3 months I didn’t have time to do an update post for before we left.  Now that I am almost three week behind, YIKES, I figured I would combine posts and do a little developmental post about Jude in this one.

Jude is now 3 ½ months old, in case you missed the math in the last paragraph J.  He really enjoys standing while you hold him and is quite good at it, and as much as he loves standing he HATES tummy time!  No joke he hates it.  He is getting to where he can lift his head for a while, when on his stomach, but after about 30 seconds (not exaggerating, promise!) he starts to fuss because he has had enough!  But, overall he is a happy baby he smiles constantly and is even starting to do a little squeal laugh, I can’t help but smile when he does it is so contagious!  

Sorry it's blurry, we were trying to get a picture of Jude smiling,
this was the closest we got.

He has been working on trying to get his fists in his mouth for a while, and in Oregon he mastered the “two finger suck” as I call it, though he does still like to attempt to put the whole fist in there.

Jude doing his "two finger suck" while he sleeps.

Jude you are such a precious boy and I love getting the privilege to watch you grow and change every day! What a wonderful gift God has given me in you!

  

Jude 2 Months

Jude is now over two months old, he actually turned two months last week (it’s been a long week!), but I am just now getting an update posted.

Jude had his two month doctor appointment last week; everything is going good, he is now 12 pounds, 12 ounces and 23.5 inches (both of those put him the 75% for boys his age!).  At this appointment he received the first of many vaccines he will get in the coming years.  He actually did really well with the actual shot, to be honest much better than I was expecting, but later that night he start to get a slight fever and be kind of fussy, a little Tylenol made it all better though.

Jude has changed so much in the past month that it is hard to imagine it was just two short months ago all he did was cry, eat, and sleep!  He is becoming more interactive by the day, he has started to smile, and he does smile often, and laugh.  He loves to be social, on more than one occasion he was fussing in his crib only to get a huge smile the moment he saw Josiah or I had walked in to give him attention! 

Bath time has become a big hit, especially since we figured out the right temperature for Jude (he HATES being cold!), though when we take him out of the bath there is still quite a bit of protest, because of the whole being cold part while we dry him off.

Last weekend Jude got to have his first cousin experience that he was actually somewhat aware of.  Josiah’s brother and his family came down from Ft Collins, so Jude got to have some bonding time with his cousin, Lillian, who is just under three months older than him.  It was fun to watch them be around each other and observe the other one.  On Saturday evening Jude was a little fussy anyway, but was getting calmed down by Marmie (grandma), but as soon as he heard Lillian start to fuss his lip would start to curl out and he would get this sad expression on his face (Jude has a very good pouty face).  Lillian loved to just stare intently at Jude as if she was trying to figure him out.  As they both get older I know it will be fun for them to have a cousin that lives close and are so close in age.

Even though Lillian is almost 3 months older than Jude, she barely weighs
1/2 pound more than he does!

The brothers with their kids.

This we have are starting to try and get Jude on a semi-regular schedule, since as I was reminded of at his doctor appointment he doesn’t have newborn sleep patterns anymore.  By schedule I mean go to bed at close to the same time every night, to actually lay him down in his crib for naps, and to stop using “crutches” to get him to sleep, ie pacifier.  Definitely the most difficult part of this is getting him to fall asleep without his pacifier, because he LOVES his pacifier, especially when he is tired and trying to sleep. 

I know this is one of those things that will be well worth it in the long run, so we are not having to break bad habits we have created, but I would consider this a fun part of parenting!  In fact the majority of the time I was writing this I had a very tired boy trying to cry himself to sleep, since he didn’t have a pacifier to help him fall asleep.  Our thinking from what we have read, is that if can endure little bits of crying now, with going to comfort him every few minutes, it will be easier when it is time for him to be able to sleep through the night at 4-6 months.

Overall I’m loving motherhood, even on the hard days. After all, even if it has been a LONG night, I can’t help but smile when I get to wake up to Jude’s precious toothless grin every morning!

Happy 2 Month Birthday Jude, what a precious gift God has given us in you!

Jude 1 Month

Happy 1 Month Birthday Jude!

I can’t believe my baby boy is already one month old!  On one hand it seems like he has always been here and it is very strange to think back on our life without him and on the other hand time has gone by so fast that I am amazed that it has even been a month. 

Things are going well and I think I am fairly adjusted to Mommyhood and the lack of sleep that comes with it J.  Jude is growing and changing so much every day; at his two appointment he was up to 8 pounds, 9 ounces (his birth weight was 8 lbs, 7 oz, and he was down to 7 lbs 15 oz when we left the hospital). 

He is getting more awake and alert by the day, he definitely recognizes Josiah and I’s voice, even though he can only see us if we are a few inches from his face, and he loves being social and interacting with people while he is awake.

The blanket in the pictures is his baby blanket I made for him (with some help from Marmie to get the binding finished).  I found the tutorial for the rag quilt here, I have looked through their blog and they have lots of good DIY ideas.

My sister-in-law was gracious enough to do a photo shoot of Jude while she was here at Christmas. Here are some of my favorites from that; these were taken when he was one week old. 

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This is a short synopsis of some of Jude’s major events in his first month.

This is Jude with Dr. Clark when he was just a few hours old.
Dr. Clark is the family doctor, and delivered Josiah and all of his siblings.
There is a picture in Josiah's baby book of him and Dr. Clark right after he was
born, so we thought it would be fun to get a picture of Jude and Dr. Clark.

Jude getting ready to come home from the hospital.

His First Christmas and first picture with Santa (aka Grandpa Ben)

His First (Oregon) Christmas tree. His onsie says "My First Christmas"

Happy Christmastime!

I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas season! Hopefully it is not too busy, so that you can enjoy spending time with friends and family and celebrating Christ birth, the reason for the season!

Our Christmas season has been very enjoyable, and is going by so quickly! We finished off November by buying our Christmas tree (a REAL live fir tree, actually grown in Oregon!), and celebrating our 2^nd anniversary. 

I can’t believe it has been two years already, time has gone by so fast! To bring in December we have put up our decorations, and started into the traditional Leis family holiday food already (homemade chex mix and chocolate covered pretzels, yum!!!!). 

We also entered the world of smartphones! That has been to play with our new phones and figure out all that they can do, already we have used them lots for navigation and pictures. I have a feeling it not take that long before we wonder what we ever did without themJ. Unfortunately due to Josiah catching a bad cold we did miss the Denver Festival of Lights Parade that we were planning to go to last weekend L. This weekend made up for it though; we ran errands yesterday, basically finishing up our Christmas shopping  and attending a white elephant gift exchange and dinner at one of Josiah’s friend’s house in Denver. That was a wonderful time to get to celebrate with friends, laugh at all the goofy gifts and eat some really good food!

Now we are counting down the days until Christmas, and until J.R. arrives, 14, in case you haven’t been looking at the calendar J. That is for Christmas at least, for J.R. plus or minus a few depending on when he decides to arrive (at this point I’m definitely hoping for minus a few J). Hopefully soon I will get an entry done on all the things I’ve been accomplishing in the nursery.

37 weeks pregnant. The Dr says everything is going just the way it should, and JR can come whenever he wants to (hopefully soon!)! YAY! Sorry for not a more recent picture because I'm actually 38 weeks now.

Have a happy Christmastime and hopefully soon we will get to announce the arrival of a new addition to our family!

Growing Family

Just over a week ago we had the privilege to welcome a new member to our extended family...

Our niece, Lillian Leslie Leis, who arrived on October 2nd. How fun it is that we get to have kids so close together!

Baby Lillian with Uncle Josiah at just over 24 hours old.
Isn't she precious!?!

Going to see them in the hospital made both of us excited for our little guy to arrive, in just over 10 weeks! Time is going by so fast, he will be here before we know it!