Cuttin it up

Grady got hair cut #3 this week! This time, I took it a little more seriously and didn't just do one of those little baby trims. I still left a lot of his black, curly locks but cut off the bozo look.

And I apparently also left some carrots on his nose.

Six months

I can not BELIEVE my baby is six months old. It seems to go faster with each one!

Let's look at Gradster's happenings this month:
*ROLLING everywhere, all over the floor and starting to scoot backwards!
*sitting up unsupported for short periods of time before he topples over and starts rolling.
*getting to visit his cousins Lincoln, Fletcher, Zane and Annabeth
*got his second hair cut
(yes, the above picture is AFTER another haircut!)
*no teeth yet, but lots of hand chewing
*eating solids twice a day now

*will drink from a bottle like a champ but has a STRONG dislike of formula

*RSV. Grady had been fighting a cold for a couple of weeks and started wheezing last Friday. Unfortunately, I had been up for several hours during the night fighting a bit of a stomach bug so I was still not feeling great. Thankfully, Gabe was home so he took Grady to the doc on Friday afternoon. They gave him a breathing treatment in the office and also sent us home with the machine to do treatments every 4-6 hours. So, we continued that through the weekend. Sunday night he was really wheezing, even after the breathing treatment so I took him to Prompt Care. They did a chest xray and tested for RSV and Influenza. The RSV came back positive as well as some ear redness. His xray also showed a few spots of early infection so we got sent home with some meds and followed up with our pediatrician on Monday. We had to put off his 6 month check up until he gets well.

**Stats Update** Grady weighed in at 22lbs and is 28inches long. 99% and 96%.

Headin South

We took a fun, whirlwind trip down to Nashville this weekend to visit my sister and family. We celebrated Zane and Annabeth's 5th and 3rd birthdays while we were there and enjoyed some warmer than usual temperatures. It was fun to get all seven kiddos together again. The girls play babies and dress up and tea party amazingly well and the big boys had fun digging up bugs and running around outside. The little boys were quite the charmers. Here are a few shots of the weekend:

SNOW

The snow hit us and we have been snowbound for 2 days. I love it. Staying in jammies all day, hot chocolate, snuggling, movies, games, legos...ahhh. I haven't heard any exact totals of snowfall but I'm sure it's over a foot. Even the church closed today because the parking lot had too much snow to be able to get in! Gabe and I took turns shoveling out the driveway, he lasted longer than I did. (We REALLY want a snowblower now!) Drake came out to "help" too but that mostly resulted in playing and throwing snow at each other.

So, he came in and warmed up with some hot chocolate and started in on his lego project. Here is the finished product:

5 months

Grady is now at the 5 month mark!

Five month facts:

*rolling from back to tummy every single time I lay him on his back but gets frustrated that he can't get back over to his back once on his tummy

*eating cereal twice a day and just tried his first veggie this week: squash! eating it pretty well

*starting to sit up: really well with the boppy around him, for a few seconds without support
*sleeping from 8p-8a with a feeding usually around 5a, but still experimenting with his schedule to try to get rid of those occasional wake-ups for the paci throughout the night.
*taking three naps a day now: after each day time feeding and then we keep him up until bedtime after his dinner time feeding.
*laughs the most for mommy and second-most for Drake
*eyes are still very blue so I'm hoping they will stay that way!
*still has a ridiculous amount of hair, but has a small bald-ish spot on the side but has enough hair for a combover to cover it.
*weighing in at 20lbs 4 oz...holy smokes, this kid is a beast.
*can't get him to drink any formula, not that I need him to but it would be nice to know he would at least take it if necessary, but gags if you try to give him any. even tried mixing it with the real stuff, can't fool him.
*he really is a pretty easy going baby, takes life of keeping up with two big siblings in stride and is very portable and goes with the flow. (example: last week Gabe and I went to a visitation that had a 2 hour line of waiting and we just had Grady with us. He hardly made a peep the whole time! Was content to just chew on his hands and be passed back and forth between us. Several people in the line commented on how amazing he was to last that long, especially since it went past his bedtime!)

Rolling and Reading

It's been a big week around here! Grady is officially rolling and rolls from back to tummy nearly every time he is on the floor. Neither of the older two were big rollers. They didn't really become very mobile until they were crawling at about 8 months. Not sure if I'll be able to say the same about Grady. He hasn't rolled from tummy to back yet though so we're still safe for a while at least. Here he is in action:

***And the sleep update is...Grady is sleeping all night most nights!! It took a few weeks (yeah, those who say it only take a few nights of CIO to get your baby to sleep, they're wrong!) of making the babe s t r e t c h out that night time feeding and trying a few different things but most nights he is sleeping from 8pm-5am (eats at 5) then back to sleep until about 8 or 8:30am. I will take it after the last few months of interrupted sleep! ***



And in other big news...Hadley is catching on to reading. Not that she is ready for books yet, but she is doing great at sounding out small words. This girl amazes me. I can't believe how quickly she catches on to things. Grammy had started working with her last week with some letter cards we have and since then we've been practicing several times a week. She loves doing it and gets so proud of herself! Here are a couple of shots of her in action:

Solids!

I can't believe this little man is old enough already to try solids! Here he is trying some cereal. He eats it up pretty well. Yet another attempt to try to get this turkey to sleep all night...