well played, dr. brown. well played.

Some of you are aware that we had some bottle issues last week. For some reason, William decided that he was no longer interested in our Dr. Browns bottles. He's always been a bit skeptical of the bottles in general. Typically, when we would start a bottle feeding, I would get a look something like this:

But eventually, he would take the bottle...although it always took a LONG time for a feeding, and he never really drank much. But it was working well enough for me to unpack, wash, and disinfect approximately 20 (expensive) Dr. Browns bottles and all of the tiny hard-to-clean pieces that go with them. But then...William turned 3 months old. And for some reason, he decided to completely reject the bottles! It's not just that he wouldn't drink...he would scream as if the bottle was full of poison. I don't know what caused this, but he just would not take them - from me or anyone else. Even when he was clearly very hungry, no dice. After this experience, I have started hearing of other babies who did the same thing at 3 months with the Dr. Browns bottles. Strange, huh?

So even though Will really doesn't get many bottles, once I thought he might stop taking them all together, I definitely had a moment of panic. So I went out and got several different kinds to try. I'm happy to report that we found a clear winner! Will loves the MAM bottles, and immediately pounded 4 oz of milk like a champ the first time I tried it. Since then, he has had 2 more bottles, and he did great both times. Whew!! These new bottles really made me realize that he never drank out of the other ones well at all, but I just didn't have anything to compare to. I guess we chalk this up as a new mom lesson with 2 parts: #1 - bottles don't have to be a long painful process, and #2 - don't unpack and wash bottles before you need them!

I do feel like I have to give credit to that sneaky Dr. Brown for whatever trickery he uses to make babies take his bottles at first so that moms will stock up on them, only to have to bag them up for storage at 3 months. You win this one, Dr. Brown...

On a more fun note - we took some pictures of Will in the backyard yesterday, and we got some cute ones! The first set was taken in the grass:

Then we moved to the bumbo seat, which we have just started using. At first, Will was a bit skeptical:


But then he got the hang of it and really had fun! Here are a few of my favorites:

Will has such a fun and playful personality these days. I just love hanging out with him!

3 months!

I can't believe it...William turned 3 months old on Tuesday! The past 3 months have been so much fun. Will is doing something new every day, and I can't wait to see what he'll do next! Here are a few pictures from his 3 month birthday.

Happy!

Had a tough time getting a good one with the bear. Will, here's your best shot:

We didn't have a 3-month doctor's appointment, so I don't have official stats, but my very scientific "weigh myself with and without Will" trick indicated that Will weighs about 15 pounds! He has reached a few milestones recently, including rolling over from back to front! (possibly an accident? happened only once so far...) He also found his hands, and LOVES to put them in his mouth. I feel like he is changing so much every day! Here are a few of Will's likes and dislikes at 3 months.

William loves:

• eating
• sleeping (although the 11 hour nights were definitely a fluke - he usually wakes up around 3 or 4am for a feeding, but I'm not complaining too much because he goes back to sleep right away!)
• babbling
• smiling (my favorite!)
• being outside
• bath time - loves to splash!
• being carried around
• kicking his legs in the air when he's laying on his back
• riding in the car or stroller (aka sleeping)

William does NOT love:

• being awake when he wants to sleep
• being hungry
• tummy time after about 1 minute
• Dr. Brown's bottles (more on this coming in a later post...)
• hiccups, and he still gets them several times a day!

Overall, Will is such a happy little boy, which makes me super happy. I can't describe how much fun we have had in the last 3 months, and I know it will only get better and better.

As I was looking through pictures, I realized that I never posted anything from Mother's Day. We celebrated by having everyone over to our house for a cookout, and it was a blast! Here are a few pics from the afternoon.

Family pic:

Will with the grandparents:

Will and the moms:


Me and my sweet baby (check out his red hair!):

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! :)

mr. chatterbox

What we're dealing with these days is a:

William has been cracking us up with his babbling this week! He has been making cute little noises here and there for a few weeks, but he has really turned it on in the last few days. He will "talk" for such a long time, and the past two mornings, he's been talking to himself in his crib when he wakes up. It's the most hilarious thing to listen to! I love it! Here's a video of him chattering the other day:

Will and I also went to a very fun play group this week. There were several adorable babies there, and William played the most with his friend (and birthday buddy), Nolan. Of course, their playing consists of being placed next to each other on the floor, but someday they will be best friends!

Here's our best picture of Nolan and Will at play group:

And here's a cute pic I took this morning. William loves his daddy!

so much fun!

We have been having so much fun lately! There has been lots of family time, a birthday party, fun times in the bathtub, and of course, tons of pictures!

Here's William at 11 weeks - such a sweet little guy!

Last week, we discovered that Will absolutely loves to lay on a blanket in the backyard. We already knew he enjoyed the outdoors, but usually he's being held or riding in the stroller. But last weekend, Matt was working in the backyard, so I brought Will out and put him down on a big blanket in the shade, and he was mesmerized by the trees. It was so cute - he just stared up and around for quite awhile. It's amazing to think that he's just constantly soaking things in and learning! So we've been spending some time in the backyard every day.

I've also taken on a "spring cleaning" project, which is going so very slowly. I decided to clean and organize every room, closet and cabinet, because we just have too much stuff in a not-so-big house! This project would normally be very time-consuming, but when all work must be done during little man's naptimes, it makes it take even longer! Matt doesn't believe I'm actually cleaning because every night when he comes home, the house is even messier. Hopefully I'll get into the "putting things back into place" stage of this little project very soon! Speaking of clean, here's a cute picture of Will enjoying bathtime.

Matt was going for the "Santa Claus" look with the bubbles:

Another first for Will - he attended his first birthday party on Saturday! His friend Nolan turned one and had a very fun party at the Dallas Zoo. Will had a great time hanging out in the party room and riding the monorail!

The birthday boy:

My favorite animal picture - a giant bird & giant nest:


William on the monorail ride:


Getting soooo sleepy!

Also - as an update to my previous posts about Will moving to his crib....we have been successful! He didn't have any problems making the move, although I didn't sleep so well the first night. Actually, neither did Matt, since I had the monitor turned up to the highest volume possible. Every time Will made the slightest noise, we were both startled awake by the monitor! I have now learned that half volume is plenty loud enough to wake me up when necessary.

Other fun things coming up....we are going to our first play group tomorrow and having lunch with friends on Wednesday! Plus, Will is going to be getting a brand new playmate this weekend. Can't wait to meet Baby Girl Bowen!!

rockin' & rolling!

William hit a milestone on Monday - he started rolling over from his tummy to back! He has been rolling over when propped up on his elbows since about 6 weeks, but I felt like that was cheating, since we had to do something to help him out. SO....that means Monday's unassisted roll-over was his first! I was able to get a video of the third time he did it. He was pretty pleased with himself, and so was I! Please excuse my annoying voice in the background. (I suggest utilizing the "mute" option when watching) Apparently I can't help sounding like a goofball when I am talking to Will! I'm also going to have to work at being a better cameraperson...

Since Will turned 10 weeks old today, I decided to get some more video of him. When I was taking the "rolling over" video, I realized that I haven't been getting nearly enough videos. Clearly we have plenty of pictures, but my new goal is to bring the video camera out more often. So here's a short clip of our very happy little man this morning:

After the movie making session, we had another fun moment this morning. Will's tummy time mat has a mirror that I often put in front of him when he's on his stomach to give him something to look at. Typically he doesn't even really notice it, and certainly has never enjoyed it. Well, this morning, he saw himself in the mirror, got excited, and smiled! He loved it and was fixated on his reflection for about 2 minutes. So fun!

We should have another big milestone to report very soon. I mentioned in the last post that the doctor recommended moving Will to his crib in the nursery, and I have found myself making excuses as to why he should stay in our room just a LITTLE bit longer (fever from his shots, need to get room darkening shades for the nursery, etc). But...I think it's time. I heard from another new mom that her pediatrician said that babies should sleep in their cribs once they are down to one feeding per night, and William definitely is. So, we're going to make the move tonight and see what happens. My guess is that Will is going to sleep just fine, and I'll be up all night checking the monitor!

Who wouldn't want to look at this guy all night?

two months!

Happy 2 month birthday to William! I cannot believe it has been 2 months since he was born. It seems like yesterday that we were coming home from the hospital. He actually turned 2 months old on Sunday, and here are a couple of pictures we took on the big day:

Happy Will!

Here's the monthly pic with his big bear. He's growing so fast! Still can't really get a smile on the full length shots, because I have to move too far away to get both Will and the bear in the pic, so he stops smiling by the time I can get in place to take the photo.

So here is his "solemn stare-down" pic:

Also on Sunday, Holly, Brian, and Ben came over for a visit. It was so fun to see the boys together even though they are a bit too young to actually play with each other. Holly and I tried to explain to them that even though they don't know it yet, they are going to be best friends. It was interesting to me to see the difference just a few months can make at this young age. Ben is almost 6 months old, so he was playing with Will's toys, sitting like a little man on the couch, and having a great time! I know that 4 months won't make a difference at all in a few years, but it sure does right now!

Here's a picture of Holly and me with our little men:

Will had his 2 month check up today. He's growing so fast! Here are his stats:

Weight: 12 pounds, 12 ounces (75%)
Length: 24 inches (85%)
Head: 15 3/4 inches (45%)

Unfortunately, Will also had to get shots at the appointment, and he was not pleased. He was already a bit fussy because he was getting very tired by the time we got to the doctor (fyi..."a bit fussy" is a nice way of saying that he screamed at the doctor during most of the appointment). So, as you can imagine, having 3 needles stuck in his chubby little legs did not help the situation! As painful as it was to watch, he actually recovered very quickly and immediately passed out once we loaded him up into the carseat. He has been napping ever since we got home except for waking up once to eat. Poor baby!

Since Will has been sleeping well, the doctor recommended that we move him from the pack & play in our room into his crib. This makes me REALLY feel like he's growing up fast! Not sure if we'll try it tonight or later this week, but that is definitely a big change! It will be nice not to have to tiptoe around our room, but I'm not really sure if having him in another room will make me sleep better or worse. We'll see how it goes!

I do like to end with a funny picture if I can, so here's one that made me laugh. Uncle Alex gave Will an A&M t-shirt, so I decided to take a picture of him wearing it, which I did. But then I thought it would be funny to deck Will out in every piece of Aggie gear he owns (those are A&M socks, but you can't see it), and here's the result. I love his face and the fact that somehow it looks like his shoulders start right under his ears!

happy easter and baby feet!

We had a very fun Easter last weekend! Somehow I am just now posting about it...where does the time go? William enjoyed his first time at church, his first sweater vest, some fun family time, and a visit from the Easter bunny!

This is one of my favorite pictures from the weekend.
I love it because Will is SO happy:

Yes, we were suspending him next to the tulips that Blair and Melanie gave us. I thought it would make the pictures very festive.

We tried to take some family pics using the timer and tripod on our camera. This is the only one where we all made it into the photo:

Matt and Will:

Will giving me a flower - how sweet!

I tried to have an Easter themed photo shoot for Will, but he really did not enjoy being put into a basket. Even when he was totally asleep, he would immediately start crying when I set him in the basket. This was our best shot:



Will with some of his treats from the Easter bunny:



Martha, Ryan, Matt and Will:


Will and the ladies:

All in all, it was a very fun weekend! Unfortunately, my mom had to miss the festivities, as she was out of town to take Mema back home. We missed her!

Since Easter, Will and I have been enjoying the nice weather and attempting to do some spring cleaning. However, it's amazingly tough to get things done when it's so much more fun to play with Will or just hold him and stare at him while he sleeps! So that's my excuse as to why we haven't really done much cleaning...

And finally, we have been taking tons of pictures! One of Matt's birthday presents was a new portrait lens for our camera, so Matt has been taking as many pictures as I have, which equals LOTS of pictures of William!

One of my recent favorites that Matt took:

And I did a "baby feet" photo shoot:

Speaking of baby feet...I have recently discovered that I am obsessed with how cute Will's tiny feet are! Since he was born in the middle of a snowstorm and the first month or so of his life was very cold, his teeny feet were always covered with socks, footie pajamas, etc, so I didn't have a chance to really stare at his feet. Now that spring has brought short sleeves and barefoot babies into my life, I find myself completely in love with his feet! Hence the 50+ pictures I took of them. Seriously, what is better than baby feet?! (maybe baby smiles?)

Coming soon - William turns 2 months old on Sunday!! This is exciting, although I think it means he has to have some shots at his 2-month check up on Tuesday. Don't tell him that...