7 Months, Easter and a Breakthrough

Click on the picture below to see Leyton's 7 month pictures-they were taken in his nursery/room at Granna's. Once again, Aunt Mina did a great job-thank you!!!!!

Leyton has been "talking" alot more lately and randomly, but daily, saying mama and dada-if only he could associate us with the names-soon enough though. We are finally 100% back on Similac-no more gold formula for now-and doing well. Leyton has taken to his pacifier more-but it's really only a nightimeneccessity. He loves swinging outside in his swing at Granna's and he has recently been floor dancing. Anytime he hears the Wonder Pets theme song or his rabbit that he got for Easter from his Gran-Gran, he starts kicking his legs and gets really excited.

On April 17, Leyton's bottom two front teeth broke through-finally!!!!

Birthday Celebrations

Over the past month and a half we celebrated 5 birthdays, and Leyton enjoyed taking part in all of them.

We first celebrated MeMaw's (Michael's Grandmother) 81st birthday. She absolutely loves babies and keeps telling us Leyton is too pretty to be a boy and she also kept telling us that he just needed to go home with her :)

Here Susan, Michael's aunt is holding Leyton while he acts silly-it looks like he was playing a piano.

For my birthday Michael and Leyton got me a big balloon-Leyton loves it!!!!-a cake an orchid and a gift card to one of my favorite clothing shops. Here is a pic of the balloon.

On March 6th we went to our friend Lincolns' 2nd birthday party. The theme was pirates and was such a great party! Leyton enjoyed watching all the little kids run around and was awed-as were we-with Lincoln's pirate ship swing set.

My Mom and her Sister put together a birthday party for my Grandma-Gran-Gran's 80th birthday. My Aunt, my cousin and her 3 kids(Clara and twin boys Chase and Reid) and my other cousins wife all came up and we celebrated all weekend long.

For Michael's 30th birthday, his parents took us to dinner at Brio in Southlake. Leytons favorite part was drinking from a straw and being able to see into the kitchen and see what all was going on.

First "Haircut"

Ok, so technically it wasn't a haircut, it was a mere trim, but it was still a memory worth capturing. Leyton's hair was starting to grow over his ears and he had a few long strands in the front that needed taking care of so one Friday when I was off we went to my hairdresser and she gave Leyton his first trim. He sat on my lap and was, uncharacteristically still for her.

6 Months Old

Half a year old!!!! I am never going to get over how quickly he is growing-never-it's going by soo fast. Last week we went for his 6 month check-up and the following are his stats:

Weight: 15 lbs 5 oz (25th percentile)

Height: 28" (last time they said 29"-but we found out they mis-measured) (80th percentile)

Head: 80th percentile

Doctor Robert said he is underweight but that he is not worried about him-he thinks he's going to be tall and skinny. Best news is that we are going off of prevacid and starting to slowly go back to similac-no more gold formula!!!

Leyton's newest thing is when we ask him where the fan is he looks right at it-regardless of where we are. Since he was an infant he has been and continues to be awed by ceiling fans. We've decided that will probably be his first word :)

Click below to see his 6 month pictures (he looks like such a big boy). He did much better for these pics. Thanks again Aunt Mina!!!!

5 months old.....came and went

I am not quite sure where January and February have gone but they brought us snow (once again), 2 family additions, valentines day and lots of joy, laughter and fun times!!!

On January 14th, my cousin had twin boys-Reid and Chase-and a few weekends later we went to visit them. Leyton was very interested in the new boys and wanted to touch them. When one of the boys started crying it scared Leyton (he'd never heard another baby/kid cry) and then he started crying-it was kinda funny but I also felt bad for him. It will be so fun to watch them (including Clara) grow up together!

Leyton and Chase

Leyton and Reid-right before the crying began.

The same day that we went to visit the twins Leyton turned 5 months old. Click on the picture below to see his 5 month pictures-he was being a little serious in these pics-of course once the camera went away he was all smiles.

Growing up I always received presents for Christmas and my birthday-but my Mom would also get me a "suprise" for Valentines and Easter-so of course I am had to carry the tradition on with Leyton. For Valentines (we went a little overboard but it's not like he knows) he got a new stuffed monkey, Murphy, some rubber blocks, a balloon (that deflated within a day) and some soft baby einstein blocks from us. Granna got him a potterybarn kids airplane sheet and airplane quilt to play on and a mini see and say. He also got some money and sweet cards from his Nana & Papa and Aunt JuJu and Jimmy.

Leyton continues to eat his baby food-oatmeal, fruit and veggies- but has decided that squash is, by far, his favorite. He doesn't care for any juices, but loves water-especially out of a big person cup-we can't drink water with out giving him some. He has become more snuggly and cuddly and "hugs" (squeezes) us often. Strangers seam to make him weary-but he will slowly warm up to them as long as we are around. The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Old Mc Donald are his favorite nursery rhyme songs and Brown Bear Brown Bear is the book of the moment. Aside from the wooden spoon and 1/4 cup measuring cup, his favorite toys are a throw back fisher price musical tv, a see and say, a baby einstein muscial fish tank, a balloon, rubber blocks and foam bath letters (which are in his mouth constantly-in the tub and out). Peek-a-boo is a favorite game that never gets old as well as staring into the mirror and getting handprints all over it. The television usually consists of Wonder Pets (still), Bob the Builder and Baby Einstein DVD's. He absolutely LOVES to ride in the baby bjorn and go around the house touching and grabbing anything and everything. He has even helped me bake some cakes and cupcakes while in the bjorn.
He is still toothless but continues to drool constantly. He isn't sleeping through the night yet, BUT he is only waking up once to feed and goes back to sleep afterwards. The cats and Goldie (my Grandparents dog) intrigue him and he gets frustrated when they won't let him touch them. As soon as he sees them he smiles and begins "talking" to them (as seen in my previous blog). He is also sitting up on his own as is evident in the above picture. I can't believe that yet another month has gone by-we're having so much fun!!!

Chatting it up with Snowflake

Happy New Years and 4 months old

Michael ended up working on NYE, so Leyton and I spent the night at Granna's-relaxing & playing in-front of the fireplace (I wish ours was "real"-but it is just for looks). We all went to bed by 10:30 but Leyton woke up at 12:30 to ring in the new year with a 6oz bottle. On New Years Day my Mom cooked a big yummy lunch and we spent the rest of the day relaxing/playing/sleeping. Leyton is playing airplane with daddy in the pic below-one of his new favorite things. Notice the drool on his right shoulder-something that has been a constant flow over the past month-can we say teething????

As I mentioned in past blogs, we are enjoying experiencing all of Leyton's firsts-however we did encounter one that I hoped we would never have to. (Let me preface this story by saying there are a few* choice words I would like to use, but will refrain.) On the way to his 4 month check-up we were rear-ended by a girl* who wasn't paying attention. Michael was driving my car and Leyton and I were in the back seat and we think the girl* was going 35-40mph (there weren't any skid marks either). It mostly scared Leyton-he cried, but being the big boy that he is quickly calmed down and was smiling before we left the "scene". The doctor checked him out and said that he was okay and that the carseats did its' job. We were so lucky that he wasn't hurt and hopefully he won't have to encounter that again.

At his check-up he weighed in at 13lbs, 2oz (20th percentile) and measured 29"long (92nd percentile)-the doctor said he is going to be tall and skinny like his daddy. We were also given the go-ahead to start introducing baby food and cereal to him as well as diluted juices. So far, he's not too crazy about either which is to be expected. Leyton is laughing more, drooling like no other, putting 4-8 fingers in his mouth at once and sucking on them (quite a sight), "talking" more, and is very interested in our cats all of a sudden. He enjoys watching Baby Einstein and talks to the puppets-it's so funny to watch his expressions when he's watching the videos. He is really into musical books and toys that make sounds and is big into feeling different textures. When we feed him he has to have a hand on our face and feels all over-occasionally we get a finger up our nose :) He is has yet to crawl (but is working extra hard on it as is apparent in the above pic) or rollover-but he is very close. He finally graduated to size 1 diapers and 0-3 clothing but then recently hit a growth spurt and is now wearing 3-6 month clothing because of the arm and leg length.

Click on the pic below to see Leytons 4 month pics-they turned out great-thanks again Aunt Mina!!!!!

I can't believe how fast he is growing and changing right before our eyes and in about a week he will be 5 months old. Peoples always told me to cherish this time because it goes by so fast-now I can attest to it.

First Christmas

Leyton not only experienced Christmas for the first time, but he got to experience it 5 times over. Like most, we had multiple Christmas's with the different sides of our families and Leyton even met some family members for the first time. It was a great time to be together with family. Below are pictures from some of the gatherings.

Every Christmas Eve we attend two Christmas' however due to the weather and icy road conditions we were only able to go to one. For this reason as well, we ended up staying in Justin that night and woke up on Christmas Day to our first (for all 3 of us) white Christmas. Leyton has experienced as much snow in his 4 1/2 months as I have in my lifetime. There was enough snow on the ground that Michael was able to make a snowman-and a good one at that!

Being 4 months old, Leyton wasn't really able to actively participate in Christmas (we tried to get him to tear/pull the paper on some presents-but he wasn't too keen on that). He did however enjoy looking at all the lights on the christmas trees and mantles as well as stockings and the musical Christmas puppets/scenes that were set up. He also thoroughly enjoyed the tissue paper. He was so tired from all the traveling and visiting and present opening that he ended up sleeping through Christmas at Granna's.

As young as he is-he sure made out like a bandit with all the presents that he received (most of them are toys that he can use later in the year-so we put those away for now). Dare I say the child is spoiled?

Christmas Day marked the anniversary that we told our parents that we were expecting-and here we are a year later with a beautiful, precious, blessing-. This Christmas was memorable in many ways .......