Joseph's first kayak demos

This weekend I drove to St. Louis to help with a couple of kayak demos the store had scheduled. My parents are currently out of the country sailing, and didn't have enough people left behind to work the demo and keep the store open, so I figured I'd help. That meant another trip to St. Louis for Joseph too. I was a little anxious about the whole weekend, especially since he finally started sleeping really well (he slept over 8 hours straight Thursday night!) and I didn't want to mess that up.

My sister Jennifer graciously agreed to come along to the demos to babysit and play with Joseph. Saturday we started early, leaving the house at 7:45am so that we could pick up another helper and head to Carlyle Lake, which is in southern Illinois, about 60 miles east of St. Louis. The weather was beautiful - sunny, warm, a little breeze. Keeping Joseph out of the sun but not overheated was a little challenging as we didn't have a place to keep him inside. After taking a few shorter naps, we decided it was time to focus on getting him down for a nap in the shade, and he finally gave in...

Gotta love the makeshift canopy out of the bundleme! The day wrapped up at about 4pm, and then we had another 1 1/2 hr drive back home. All that fresh air must have worn him out - he slept the whole way back, ate at 6pm, went back down for another nap (this nap usually lasts 30-45minutes), and slept until 8:45pm, when I had to wake him up! He wasn't too happy about getting his bath, gulped his bedtime bottle down, and crashed at 9:15pm... and stayed asleep until 4am! Woo hoo! (I never thought I'd be excited about waking at 4, but I was.)

Sunday we were able to sleep in a little, as the demo was from 12-4 and only took an hour to get to the location. I know, next time, they need to be much closer! (Apparently, the customers agreed, as neither event was well attended). This location invited us to demo at one of the resort's open houses, which luckily was finished and had air conditioning, so Jen stayed inside with Joseph through the demo. It was a much shadier location, but he made an appearance toward the end of the day to check out the lake and the kayaks.

At the end of the demo, we filled up the car (which was almost completely out of gas!) and headed straight for home, hoping to make it in time to see Nana and Papa (Jill and Gary were in town visiting Grandma Gillespie). We got home just in time for a little play time, bath, and Nana got to give Joseph his bottle before bed. And while he woke a little earlier than normal (3:30am), things still seem to be going well at nightime. Guess that rice cereal and sleep training really does the trick!

Hey dad, let me try!

Look who's starting to help hold his nightly bottle...

And while ir may seem like an unintentional act, he will pull the bottle out of his mouth, look at it, and then quickly shove it back in. He's definitely learning!

First major milestone accomplished!

Well, it's official, he rolled today! At the end of his tummy time session, he managed to fluidly roll from his belly to his back, and then proceeded to give me a look like, well, of course I can do it! It's only happened once, but I'm sure he'll keep it up. So at 3 months, 1 day, Joseph rolled over.

He also has really started using his hands more. Not that he'll pick up toys, but if we put something in front of him, he'll quickly grab on and then bring it to his mouth. And speaking of things going into his mouth, he has finally started using his thumb as his favorite soothie, more than a pacifier! This has come in really handy this week as we've tried hard to work on sleep training. It's so nice to be able to put him down and not hear a peep, check in and see him sound asleep, or dozing with his thumb in his mouth. Last night we upped the amount of rice cereal in his bottle, and for the first time in weeks he slept soundly for 6 1/2 hours! Hooray! Now if I could only kick this sinus cold I've developed which is making it hard for me to sleep, and we'll all actually get some rest. Here's hoping that tonight goes as good or better than last night.

And I got the baptism pictures, so here are a few... My sister Ashley and Joe's best friend from college, Kyle, are Joseph's godparents. Kyle even flew in for the event, from his new home in North Carolina. One of the really neat things about the day, is that the priest who baptized me, way back in 1981 when he was a relatively new priest, also married Joe and me in 2006, and then agreed to be present to baptize Joseph!

After the baptism... he was all smiles and wanted to see what was going on behind him... (grandparents were in the pew behind us, making faces:) )

Many of my dad's siblings were able to attend, including my uncle Jeff, his wife Carol, my aunts Vicki and Judith, and Jeff's kids Laurie and Steven. Somehow we took took long to do this "Parsonage" family picture that we forgot to take one with Nana and Papa (my mom's parents)! My mom's brother, Dave, and his wife and their two kids met us afterward, along with some family friends.

We had a small party at my parent's house afterward. Nana really had a blast talking to Joseph, who wasn't really sure about the whole thing at first...

But he soon figured out that she was talking his language and started talking and cooing back, so much so that he was cracking everyone in the room up!

Tummy time and the bumbo seat

As promised, here are a few pictures from last week - I'm still waiting on my mom to send pictures from his baptism, but these are cute anyway! The doctor has recommended more tummy time, so we work it in when we can.... the little guy isn't a big fan of it!

 He looks like he's having fun, but really he was about to tell us, loudly, that it was time to flip back over! :)

 When we got home, we pulled the bumbo seat up from the basement. Joseph really likes being held facing outward, and can sit up pretty straight on his own while in a lap. This was the first attempt - not too bad! (The dogs are entertaining him in this picture)

This is from yesterday - contrary to Joe's comment a week or two ago, Joseph can really hang on to Sophie now, and loves chewing on her hooves.

Playing with daddy last night. Since he's 3 months old tomorrow, we decided to continue the tradition of doing fun, smiley poses on dad's lap for comparison. He's getting so big!

busy week

I know I've been slow updating the blog the last couple of weeks. We have been really busy, and traveling a lot. Last week, after getting home from the lake on Monday, I set to cleaning the house quickly. My mom graciously agreed to come to KC and help me with my gardening. I've discovered that I have lots of free time during the day, but because I'm trying to cram things in while 7 naps, gardening and getting full of dirt and mulch isn't that easy to work in. So she came up late Monday afternoon, and stayed with us until Thursday morning. We managed to completely tear out all of the plants/weeds around the screened porch, and transplant the few plants that were worth saving. So now the north side of our house (which borders the garage) has a line of transplanted lirope plants, instead of weeds and dirt. Lowe's had a great deal on decent sized boxwoods, so we planted 6 along the east side of the porch, and planted 3 rose bushes and 2 transplanted hostas on the south side of the porch. I also extended the bed in the front yard, moved a bush that was growing too close to another, and then we planted about 4 dozen annuals all around the front and back yard beds. 18 bags of mulch later, and it looks like a whole new yard! I couldn't have done it without her help, and she got to spend a few extra days with the baby, which is never a hard thing to deal with :)

I have pictures on my camera, but I'm working at Panera (more on why later) and left the camera at home.

Friday we all headed to St. Louis, as we had Joseph baptized at the church where we were married on Sunday. Most of my parents' relatives, their kids and some close family friends attended the ceremony and party we had afterward. 7 did really well, no crying at all (once he was fed....)! Again, pictures to come.

Our friend Kyle made the trip in for the baptism as we had asked him to be Joseph's godfather, and he had a horribly early flight out Monday morning. Joe and the dogs took Kyle to the airport (leaving my parents' house at 5am!) and then headed for KC. I'm staying in St. Louis this week with Joseph because (a) the grandparents were thrilled to get extra time with Joseph and (b) Jennifer graduates from SLU on Friday afternoon. I'm already traveling back to St. Louis for the next two weekends for kayak demos, and didn't really want to have another trip back and forth across the state. So we stuck around.

Last night we had crazy severe storms come through. Luckily, they rolled in right after Joseph had gotten up for his 2:30am feeding, so he had fallen back asleep before they really hit. At about 3am they were right on top of the house, and I was awoken by the flash of lightning and crash of thunder immediately following, so loud it sounded like it had struck our house. Once I realized we were ok, it took a while to fall back asleep. Turns out, lightning had hit our next door neighbor's house - well, their chimney, and blew the whole top off. No wonder why it sounded like it was so close!

The storm seems to have done something bad to our router, so we don't have internet access at the house. Knowing I needed to get my data entry done for Joe, I packed 7 up this morning and took him on a quick errand, then parked us at a Panera Bread Co, where I've been working and he's been napping for the last two hours. Thank goodness for free wifi!

As soon as I get internet service again, I'll post a bunch of pictures. Most excitingly, 7 is getting really close to rolling over! He's gotten really strong, and has no trouble holding his head up. While on his belly, he can kick his legs out like an airplane, and can get up on an edge, but can't quite get over his shoulder. He also rolls onto his side when he starts off on his back. Pretty soon we'll have a rolling baby! He's becoming a very happy baby, giggling and talking at anyone who talks to him and smiles. It's so cute :)

Sophie!

With his new fascinating discovery that he has hands, Joseph has started down the path of trying constantly to get both hands, sometimes together, into his mouth. He's also perfecting his grasp, which means he's ready for his first soft chewy toy - Sophie the giraffe! Sophie's legs are narrow enough for 7 to get his hand around them, and he manages to get various parts of Sophie close enough to his mouth to try to knaw on her. Add the fun squeaker inside Sophie, and she's become one of his favorite toys!