End of September

Summer 2013

     We have had such a fun and busy summer this year. We of course have a new addition to our family. Cole makes life so fun, new and exciting. He is so darling and is such a happy friendly baby. He has added so much to our lives!

     Dave started his medical residency at University of Wisconsin in Madison. He is specializing in dermatology and internal medicine. He is in his intern year, which is crazy busy. The last 8 weeks he had 6 days off total. It was tiring to say the least. But he is on a dermatology month now which is nice because he has weekends off and works normal hours. So Cole and I are enjoying seeing him more.

     Since moving to Wisconsin we have been able to do a bit of exploring. We have really enjoyed Devil's Lake. We have been there several times. It is only about 45 minutes from our house. It looks like a mountain lake in Utah. But it is warm because of course it is not nearly as high an elevation as the mountain lakes are. Which makes it nice to swim in. There is lots of hiking, rock climbing and water activities there.

     There are 2 big lakes in Madison, Lake Mendota and Lake Menona. There are tons of fun walks and beaches right here in the city that we have enjoyed discovering.

     We have also taken a couple trips to Chicago. We went to a Cubs game at Wriggly Stadium and just enjoyed the the city. We are planning a trip to Milwaukee. We are excited to see that city too.

    A couple weeks ago Cole and I drove to Omaha for a little trip to visit our friends there. Marissa had a baby girl and we wanted to see her. It was so fun. One of our friends, Melanie actually flew in for the weekend from Utah with her 2 kids.And Lisa and Heather are both living in Kansas City now and they both came up with their kids. It was so fun to see so many of my Omaha friends!

     Dave's parents came out for a visit a few weeks ago. They got Cole and I out a lot! We had so much fun going to the zoo and wandering around downtown. Madison has a lot of fun things to do. We also spent a lot of time just hanging out at the house. Cole was very spoiled with all the fun grandparent time! Dave's brother Jon and his wife Jana drove up from St. Louis for a couple days while their parents were here as well. It is always fun to see Jon and Jana! They are such a sweet couple.

     Cole has been growing and learning new skills so quickly! He has been sitting up well by himself since he was about 4 months old. His 2 bottom teeth came in at 6 and a half months. He loves to laugh and is very ticklish, especially when he is tired. When he is sleepy he often gets really silly and slap happy. The littlest things will make him laugh so hard that he can barely breathe. It is adorable!!

    He has been eating solid food since 4 months. It took him a couple weeks to loose the tongue thrust, but once he did we couldn't feed him fast enough. He loves to eat. Whenever Dave and I are eating he opens his mouth and is totally prepared for us to let him take a huge bit of our burger or what-not, which of course we don't give him!! He also LOVES to drink whatever mommy is drinking! Whenever he sees me get a glass of water or fill up my water bottle he gets a huge grin on his face. I always get him a glass and let him drink like a big kid. He really enjoys that. He is really getting good at eating finger foods now as well. He started figuring it out around 6 months. That has been really nice!

     He has also gotten to be such a good sleeper. After I got back from Omaha, since Dave's work schedule isn't as crazy right now, I decided to cut out his early morning feeding. Now he goes from 7-7:30 pm through to 6 am-ish. I'm trying to push it back until we are going 7-7 give or take. He is doing really well. He used to wake up wanting to eat around 3:30-4 am. So it is nice for me to not get up with him that early anymore.

   Cole is really friendly and loves spending time with other kids. Luckily we have lots of great neighbors and friends who also have darling little kids! Cole loves to smile at them and play with their toys. :) He is a such a little cutie, he smiles as soon as he sees the camera. So we have so many great smiley pictures of him. He is already so photogenic which is so fun for me. He is such a fun baby.

August and September 2013

 

 

100 days old!

Here is Cole at the new house. :) He is 100 days old today. He is getting more and more coordinated everyday. He loves to stick everything he gets his hands on into his mouth. He loves his Oball toys and sitting up like a big boy in his bumbo. His legs are getting pretty chubby and he wont be able to fit into his bumbo too much longer. He is such a sweet little guy!

3 months old, living in a house of boxes!!!

Cole is already 3 months. I can't believe it! It seemed like the 8 months we knew he was on the way here took forever and now more than a third of that time has passed in a flash.
Dave and I are enjoying being Cole's parents so much!! He is such a sweet baby. We love all the smiles and giggles we are getting out of him lately. He is such a strong baby. He loves to sit up like a big boy and is rolling from his belly to his back easily now. He is trying so hard to roll from his back to his tummy, but has only done it, on his own, once that I've seen.
We are back to nursing now, but I dont think my milk is as easy on his tummy as the special formula we have for him. So we decided today to try to give him one bottle of formula a day to help out his digestion. Hopefully his intestines will get better at processesing my milk without irritation as he gets a little older.
Our family is moving in 3 days to Wisconsin, Dave will be doing a Dermatology residency there, so we will be living there for the next 5 years. Our house here in Omaha is pretty much all boxed up. So for Cole's 3 month pictures I thought it would be fitting to have him surrounded by our lovely decor. Haha!
Here he is!

Cole 0-8 weeks

I can't believe how quickly the first 8 weeks have gone since we had our sweet baby boy. He has filled our lives with so much love! Dave and I are so grateful to have him in our family.

Cole has changed so much already. At first he just slept so much, and gradually he has become so much more alert and strong. He can hold his head up so well now. He likes to do belly time and sit in his bumbo chair now. But he still loves being held most of all. :) Which is so cute and fun for us.

Dave has joked from the beginning that he wanted him to be talking and walking by 1 month. Haha! But Cole has done one thing that is way ahead of the game. At just under 5 weeks old he rolled from his belly to his back 3 times in a row. We knew that would be hard to believe so we caught the last one on video. He didn't do it again for a couple weeks, but this last week and a bit he has done it on several more occasions. We thought it was a fluke because he was on a soft bed the first time. But now he rolls over when he is doing tummy time on the floor! Pretty impressive. Rolling over usually happens between 3-4 months old. 

Belly Time



Cole has had a very fun filled life so far. At 4 weeks he flew with us to Utah for Dave's sister's wedding.

At 5 weeks we drove to Wisconsin to look at houses.

And at 6 weeks we went Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We spent the weekend at Teissa and Casey's cabin.



Dahlia, Dave, Cole, Casey, Teissa, Bella and Isaac



So Cole had already been in 5 States by the time he was 6 weeks old. He is beginning life as a traveler. Hopefully he will continue to have a life filled with traveling to new places.

Here is Cole and his first girlfriends.



Harley and Cole 11 days apart



Cole and Elizabeth. Will they both be archers? Pui

Cole has been such a

sweet happy baby. He hardley cries and loves to smile at us. But we have had a bit of a scare the last few weeks. The day Cole turned 5 weeks old we noticed that he had some flecks of blood in his stool. We took him to the doctor the next morning, who didn't seem too worried. He told us that it is probably a reaction to something I am eating. So I began cutting things out. Over the past 3 weeks I cut out dairy, soy, eggs, and nuts. It has improved but not gone away. Hopefully we can get it all figured out. MSPI affects so many kids and can run in families, so I am crossing my finger that our next doesn't have this same problem. It is a good diet though. It's probably the only diet that I've ever really wanted to keep. Knowing that what I eat could potentially be hurting my baby makes it easy to stick with it.


Dave and Cole



Walking to the Garden



Today Cole is 1 month and 28 days old almost 2 months. :) He slept 8 hrs and 37 minutes last night. His longest stretch ever. From 9:15pm until about 6am. We were very happy!!

Here is a picture of him in the bath this evening before bed.



More Belly Time

 



I love this one!