4 months & counting

My deepest apologies for my blog neglect... I always seem to put stuff on Facebook & then never make it any farther than that! Our sweet boy is growing, growing, growing, and getting cuter by the day. He'll be FIVE months next week - holy cow.

He is sitting & standing if you hold his hands, grabbing toys & stuffed animals, putting things in his mouth, rolling over, eating solid food, and it probably won't be too long before he's crawling! He loves his mama - and will not let anyone else put him to bed - no sir.

I'm still breastfeeding 5-6 times a day, but he's also tried sweet potatoes, rice cereal, applesauce, mangoes, green beans & peaches so far. He's getting the hang of the spoon & swallowing food, and has eventually liked most everything I've given him. He goes to bed between 8-9 p.m., sleeps til sometime between 5-7 a.m., and usually goes back to sleep again after nursing until 8-9 a.m. He still doesn't have a definitive nap schedule, but that might be coming soon.

At his 4-month check-up, he weighed 17 lbs and was 27.25 inches tall - still off the chart for height. He's wearing mostly 9-month clothes (anywhere from 6-12 months), and I just put a size 2 shoe on him the other day and it just barely fit. He wears size 3 diapers, and diaper blowouts or leaks are almost a daily occurrence - giving my Shout Stain Stick a workout.

He still takes a paci well (which is a lifesaver for me), and also likes to hold his lovey(ies) in his carseat. We've dropped the swaddle at night, and he often rolls onto his side to sleep (like his mommy). Aunt Hillary has been keeping him a couple of the days I work, and Grandma Joli the other day, but now Wade will be taking over Hillary's days while he's off for the summer (since my new niece Riley is due any day!).

Life is tough when you're dealing with crazy parents like us.

He was baptized on May 22, the day he turned 4 months old. A good number of our family came to celebrate Caden becoming a member of the covenant family! He even wore Wade's baptism outfit :).

He does this open-mouth grin/laugh all the time & it's so cute.

I think he's getting my hair color/texture, and it is slowly growing back in after a slight baby hair loss period.

We got him this exersaucer for $15 at a yard sale, and it is great for him to learn to balance & hold himself up. He won't play in it for hours or anything, but it's a good diversion for a few minutes when I need to do things in the kitchen.

2.5 months!

It is obviously beyond time for me to update this blog, considering Caden is going on 11 weeks now. He is getting a lot more fun, as he smiles and sortof laughs, kicks on his playmat & in his bouncy seat, and doesn't cry quite so often! He's been wearing 3-6 month clothes since he was 6 weeks, and he has a really long torso, so a lot of onesies are just too short & wide. At his 2-month checkup he was 14 lbs, 5 oz, and 26 inches long (95th percentile for weight & off the chart for height).

He's sleeping 8-9 hour stretches at night (one time 10!), which usually means going down between 8:00 and 9:00, waking up around 4:30-5:30 to eat, and then going back down until 8 or 8:30. It is definitely nice to be getting pretty good sleep again!

Sleeping in the bouncy seat... this usually happens in the morning after we get up, I feed him & put him in the seat while I eat breakfast & do other kitchen things. He'll kick & play for a while and then fall asleep.

This was a nap one day... love those little feet curled up under that cute bottom!

Many people say all he does is sleep, and it probably seems like it from my pictures too! We're just now getting to the point where I can take decent pictures of him awake. Before now, if he was awake, he was generally eating or crying.

After bath, stretching out.

Kicking on the play mat - one of his favorite things :).

Caden is here!

Eight days ago, our sweet Caden Mitchell Tapp joined us at 1:34 a.m., on January 22, 2011. He was 8 lbs, 9 oz, and 20.5 inches long. I was in labor for about 18 hours from the time I was induced Friday morning.

It was a very long day, and there were points where I wasn't making any progress and the nurses suggested I could just go home and come back another day. But I'm so glad my body finally kicked into gear and allowed Caden to come before I had to do that!

Caden had some trouble breathing at first, so they had to take him to the NICU, where they found a small pneumathorax (air bubble in the thoracic cavity outside the lungs). Luckily his was very small, and he only had to stay in the NICU for about 12 hours. It was pretty scary and emotional to have him whisked away so quickly, but we had great nurses, doctors & midwives who made the whole experience so much better.

We've been home for almost a week now - a hectic, crazy week - but things are starting to seem more manageable. God has been so good to us with this precious boy. We love him so much already!

40.5 weeks and ready for Caden!

Yeah, still ready. Still no baby.

36 weeks and ready for Caden!

I was officially 36 weeks on Friday, so I guess Caden could supposedly come anytime now. I'm not holding out a lot of hope for him to come early, but you never know :). We just need to get the car seats put in our cars & then we'll be all set. Oh, and I guess I should pack a hospital bag.

I feel like Caden is getting huge - he's definitely running out of room in there! Lots of feet or knees or a little butt poking me these days :).

Looking quite round :)

Christmas decorations!

Since we were about to move last Christmas, we didn't decorate the condo, so this is our first married-Christmas-decorating attempt. It mostly involves lights, because I really love Christmas lights.

I do love our stockings on the mantle though! I'm planning to buy one for Caden after Christmas if I can find a good one on sale. I hope I have better luck finding a "C" initial than a "W" - I never could find a W stocking, especially that I liked the stocking part of. So I need to figure out how to put a W on Wade's at some point.

Christmas lights on the banister

Christmas lights by the dining room table

Christmas lights in the sunroom!

And the Christmas tree! I love turning on all these lights every night and having them be the only lights that are on, unless something else is needed in whatever room we're in. It's just so cozy feeling (I would say warm & cozy, but since we're still keeping the thermostat at 63 until Caden comes & we have to bump it up a bit, it's not exactly warm in here :)).

So behind...

So, I guess I wasn't kidding when I titled my last post "beginning a busy fall" - it has definitely been just that so far! On October 9, my sister & Wade's sister threw my first shower. It was very fun and special. I neglected to get any pictures, except Danielle took like 50 of me opening gifts, so I'll spare you a ton of them & just post one :).

Wade & I went to his good friend Jonathan Jakes' wedding the next weekend (once again, no pictures), and then I went on our church's women's retreat the weekend after that (still too lazy to get pictures!). We had a low-key Halloween weekend, and then this past weekend we drove down to Kiawah Island, SC, for the wedding of a good friend of the Tapps' - a girl who is like Wade's sister.

Everything was gorgeous, including the beautiful sunset over the ocean at the golf club where they had the reception.

It was pretty chilly, so I was all bundled up all night. Not the best fashion that way, but I was glad I had brought my leggings & sweater in addition to my dress!

I'm vowing to take more pictures the next 2 weekends at my last 2 showers. Less than 10 weeks until due date :).