Easter bunny and baby signs

Last Saturday St. Vincent held an associate appreciation event. The event included pictures with the Easter Bunny and an Easter egg hunt for the kiddos. Nolan obviously couldn't participate in the egg hunt but we thought it would be fun to get his picture taken with the Easter Bunny. As you can tell from the picture, I don't think he really knew what was going on. He didn't show any fear of the bunny...but we didn't exactly get a smile either! After our turn with the bunny we went and had some donut holes and waited around for our next event...a baby sign language class.

While we were still expecting Nolan we went to the maternity expo at the Women's hospital and met Julie, a baby signs instructor. I took interest and asked to be put on her email list, and a few weeks ago I received an email inviting us to her baby signs workshop at the hospital. We have several friends who have taught some signs to their children and I thought it would be a really neat thing to do. There is a lot of impressive research supporting teaching signs to babies and Nolan is at the perfect age to start so we thought we would give it a try. I really enjoyed the class and Nolan was so attentive. Julie has this bear that she uses in her classes to help teach the signs and Nolan was completely focused on her and the bear. We received a book and several DVDs to help us get started. We learned quite a few signs during the workshop that I think will be very helpful. I left the class excited to start with our first signs.

Julie suggested that we start with five signs and add more later (Nolan won't start signing for several months yet). We have chosen the signs for eat, drink, sleep, all done, and are trying to decide what the fifth one should be. So far Nolan thinks it's pretty funny when I use the sign for eat when I am feeding him dinner. We will share these signs with you so you can use them with Nolan as well (we will be sharing them with Angie at daycare too). We look forward to seeing how Nolan does with the signs and hopefully they will make communicating with him easier before he is actually able to use his vocal words! :)

Nolan's Dedication

OK, so this is about a month late but I just realized that I don't think I posted about Nolan's dedication at church. It was such a special day and weekend. The weekend started on Saturday February 13th when grandma Liz, uncle Jeff, aunt Jules, and soon to be uncle josh came down. We spent some time with them before Kevin and I went out for a date night leaving Nolan with the others. It was nice to have a night out with Kevin (definitely doesn't happen that often) and I know the others really enjoyed spending time watching Nolan. Kevin's dad/grandpa Jerry and aunt Libby also showed up later that evening. On Sunday we all met grandma Sue and Deb at church. It was so great to have all of them there to share in the special day. There was a special blessing for Nolan and also a special blessing for us as his parents with a time for prayer. I was a bit nervous about what kind of mood Nolan would be in since his morning nap usually takes place around 9 and church started at 9:30, but he was happy as could be....quite the little entertainer. Whenever he would look at Kevin he would smile and started kicking his legs. A reminder of the joy he has brought into our life. After church Kevin's family had to take off to get back home and the rest of us went out for a meal at Binkley's where I used to work. We then spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around the house watching the Olympics, taking naps, and being entertained by Nolan. It was a weekend of being reminded about the blessing of family and the special gift of Nolan. Bellow is what our pastor read at the time of Nolan's dedication:

Nolan Keith Myers, We dedicate you to the One who made you and will always love you from now into eternity. In a world of despair, may God grant you the gift of hope and joy. In a world of doubt, may God grant you the gift of faith and zeal. In a world of brokenness, may God grant you the gift of healing and salvation. Now may God's Spirit protect and guide you until the day when you make your own confession of faith. Amen.

Running Update

We are still running!!! We received an email the other day reminding us that the mini is less than 60 days away! Where is the time going?! Kevin and I are still running and working towards our goal of running the entire race. Finding time to run has been difficult with Kevin's private practice 2-3 nights a week and one of us needing to watch Nolan. We have been able to work out a schedule where each of us gets the opportunity to run three times a week. The training program that we are trying to follow suggests four times a week but unless we get up early to go run that just isn't going to happen (and I don't think getting up to go run is going to happen...). Because we are only able to run three times a week we have been trying to take advantage of the times we get and have been doing longer runs than the training program suggests. So far it seems to be going pretty well. We both now know that we can run at least half of the race (My longest run has been 7 miles and Kevin has done 8...the most that either of us have ever ran...ever!!!!). Yesterday I ran outside for the first time since it started getting really cold. It felt AWESOME! I ran 6.4 miles but felt like I could have gone for hours, however I had to get back to watch Nolan so Kevin could go run. I am so excited about the warming weather and the melted snow making it possible for me to run outside again. There is just something about running outside with the fresh air that is so refreshing and energizing. Now that the weather is getting nicer again Kevin and I have discussed buying a running stroller so we can both run and take Nolan out with us. So bring on the spring weather and bring on the running!!!

6 Months

Nolan turned 6 months old this week. Can you believe it? I can't!!!! My sweet little baby is quickly turning into a sweet little boy! It is amazing how much he changes from week to week and even day to day. I have mentioned in earlier blogs that Nolan does new things each day and that hasn't changed. He has mastered rolling over and we are currently working on mastering sitting unassisted. Learning to sit has been a bit of a challenge because every time we would try to get him to sit he would straighten his legs to stand. My mom told me that I was a lot like this as a baby...always wanting to stand. However, over the last week I have been working hard with him in the evenings on sitting and besides the occasional wobble and topple he is doing quite well. It is so fun to watch him master these new skills. And you can tell that he is quite proud of himself by the big grin he flashes showing off his two little teeth.

Besides sitting he is also starting to work on crawling. It is quite cute. He can get his knees pulled up under his belly sticking his little butt up in the air (he can be found sleeping like this) and he can push up on his hands, but he hasn't figured out how to do the two together to get himself moving. He gets frustrated by this, especially when the toy that he wants is out of reach. He often resorts to rolling over and twisting to get the toy he wants.

In other news we are finally improving on sleeping. We have started only going into his room the first time that he wakes up and I often nurse him at this time. If/when he wakes up again we have decided to stop going into his room because we have discovered that we are more of a distraction than anything. We had been keeping him in his crib when we went in, only rubbing his back but as soon as we would stop rubbing his back he would push up on his hands, lift his neck, and arch his back to look at us. It would take up to 2 hours to get him back to sleep. We have discovered from the few nights that we have let him fuss that he doesn't fuss that long before going back to sleep. I have been totally against letting him "cry it out" and still don't like that method, however I feel OK about what we are doing because he doesn't cry for that long and I feel that he is old enough to learn that it is time to sleep. We had one night about a week ago where he slept 10 1/2 hours and last night he slept for 10 hours again. AMAZING! I have not always slept that well because I wake up wondering what has happened since I haven't heard him...but I think if he has a few more nights like that it won't be long before I too am sleeping straight through.

Well, I could go on about all the new things Nolan is doing but I think I will stop here and save the rest for another day. It truly is amazing to me how much this little guy has changed our lives. I still find myself, even after six months, looking at him in awe. I carried him for 9 months and here he is 6 months old already....an amazing, healthy, happy, intense, determined, little boy. A true blessing.

Food Creations

Several weeks ago we decided that it was time to start Nolan on some baby foods. While we had played around with it a few times we had not consistently been giving it to him. One of Kevin's co-workers had given us some Gerber baby food that she had left over. Nolan really enjoyed the carrots and the sweet potatoes but wasn't so excited about the green beans. Then about a week or so ago after receiving some baby food recipes from my mom (that she had received from a lactation consultant she works with) and talking with several of my momma friends I decided that I wanted to try my hand at making some foods for Nolan. It was so much fun....and SOOOOOOOO easy!!! I made sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, peas, apples, pears, avocado, bananas, and pear/bananas. I put most of it in ice cube trays and froze them and then put them in freezer bags. So far he has enjoyed everything that we have tried...even the green beans!! We haven't eaten any of the bananas yet because we have been dealing with constipation issues (for more on this you can read Kevin's blog). I think it has to do with the formula (which he doesn't get a whole lot of) but it could also just be him getting used to all the foods. We started with veggies once a day and now he is getting fruits during the day and veggies in the evening. I definitely recommend home-made baby food and would be happy to pass on recipes to anyone who wants them. I am already looking forward to making more in the next week or so and I'm going to try some new things as well. I would love suggestions!!!