Halloween week

Double trouble

Dylan loves to EAT!

This boy loves to eat! 

From the beginning I offered Dylan more table food than baby food, which makes things a lot easier and more fun! Here's a peek at his typical meals:

Breakfast: banana cut in small pieces to feed himself

Yogurt or cottage cheese mixed with banana that gets left on his tray while he eats it

Smashed up sausage from Colin's leftover breakfast

Scrambled eggs

Lunch: 

If we are out for lunch, I feed him anything I'm eating, just mashed up a little. For example on Tuesday I was out with my mom for lunch and she was feeding him her chicken salad from the sandwich she had, and I was feeding him part of my soup, that had a cream base with rice, veggies and turkey. He also will eat lunch meat like turkey, ham, of roast beef of whatever sandwich I have. 

Dinner:

He always has smashed avocado as his 1st course ( he really likes it just like Colin) and then tonight I tried giving him a jar of sweet potatoes & corn baby food Evan got from the store but he started turning his head away and fussing so I pulled out some leftover pasta with ground beef and he was much happier! I think the consistency of the baby food is starting to not be as appealing and he prefers to feed himself vs. spoon fed. As you can see in the video, he's almost mastered the pincher grasp ( a little tough with the slippery pasta). I don't think Colin had the pincher grasp until 9 months and Dylan's been doing it at least a month. I think it might be because we let Dylan feed himself 

much earlier than we let Colin. 

Oh and this is all with no teeth!!! 

Captured on video...

Dylan at 7 months

What he's eating:
2 solid meals a day, breakfast and dinner...most days we are out of the house for lunch, if we are home, I'll feed him lunch too. On his 6 month birthday we started him on solid foods. Since he still doesn't have teeth, it's mainly puréed baby food, but we are also doing table food such as smashed bananas, avocado, cottage cheese, yogurt, pasta...I'm pretty much letting him try everything now, and so far he is a great eater!!

What he's drinking:
Still nursing and taking 1 formula bottle a day. He nurses or has a bottle 4 times a day.

What he's doing:
Unassisted sitting at nearly 6 months.Crawling started at 6 months, pulling up to standing the last week or two. He's on the move!
Chewing on anything he can get his hands on, and like his big brother he loves the Sophie giraffe chew toy and teether
Playing with big brother , his favorite person in the world.
Always giggling and smiling

Teeth:
None yet!

Sleeping:
Erratic. He goes to bed anywhere between 7:30 and 8pm, and wakes up anywhere between 7 and 7:30am. Sometimes he will sleep through that entire time, some times he'll wake and giving him his paci will put him back to sleep, sometimes he's hungry. Usually if he wakes up, its only once. Naps are also erratic as he sleeps his longest nap in the afternoon. At this age, he should be on a 2 nap a day schedule, but since we are on the go so much he'll take cat naps but take one good solid nap in his crib usually from about 3:30 to 5:30 everyday. Colin has transitioned to napping only 2-3 times a week, so I try to coordinate them napping at the same time. If Colin doesn't nap, I set a timer in his room and tell him he has to have "quiet time" in his room until his time is up, so far it works like a charm!

Dislikes:
Taking a bath
hmm...pretty much that's it, he's an angel baby!

Trip to the Aquarium

,

Feeding himself his bottle

Morning snuggles

First time riding in grocery cart with Colin

Breakfast of cottage cheese and bananas

Go Gators!

Happy Boys!

They love to play in the crib together

Sorry to include this but look at that tush, I could eat him up! and he totally has his Daddy's booty!

Playing the piano at Baby Bungalow

Reddish hair

Playing with big brother

Baby smiles

This is my current favorite picture Dylan right now and shows his personality perfectly. He is the sweetest,happiest baby. Always smiling and giggling. When Dylan wakes up in the mornings, he will coo in his crib about 10-15 minutes before it turns into a cry for me to come get him. If I'm awake before this happens, then I try to get him before the crying and when I walk into his room to say good morning I get the biggest smiles. So cute! I remember Colin doing the same thing when he was this age and loving it then too. 

Dylan at 3 months old

This baby boy is such a joy, I had no idea I'd be this in love with him. He is all smiles and cooing and giggles and so easy going. He rarely fusses and cries for 2 main reasons- if he's tired or hungry. He is still going strong with his nursing and eats about 6 times in a 24 hour period, going every 2-3 hours. My only frustration is his day time naps. He seems to only take 45 minute naps during the day. Sometimes he's hungry after that 45 minutes but other times he just is done napping and wants to be picked up. I've tried letting him cry to see if he will put himself back to sleep but it doesn't really work and often times it coincides with me having to leave the house anyways to go pick up Colin from school or something else. The saving grace is that if I time it right, Dylan will take a 3 hour nap in the early afternoon in his swing at the same time Colin is napping, which is glorious as I can then nap too. So I haven't stressed too much over the shorter naps in the morning because I figure he'll outgrow it as he gets older and starts consolidating his naps. Right now he can only stay awake about 1 1/2 hours so he takes about 5 naps a day..1 long one and the others are the 45 minute ones. 

His night time sleep is predictable in that he wakes up once at night, eats and then goes back to sleep without any problem, which is great. Sometimes he'll do a 9 hour stretch before he wakes up, but occasionally he'll do a 6 hour stretch. So I'd  say it averages about 7 hours, wakes up and eats then sleeps another 3-4 before he's up for the morning.  Right now we are still swaddling him and he seems to still like it. We swaddled Colin until he was  5 months so I'll see if Dylan will follow the same.

Another funny thing is that Dylan hardly ever poops, just one poop every 5-7 days which is nice because I'm rarely changing poopy diapers but gets a little worrisome when he goes 7 days. The pediatrician says it's fine as long as it's not hard when he does finally go and it's definitely not, so I don't worry, but he does pass some mighty smelly farts pretty regularly,ha!! 

He will take his paci way more than when he was a newborn but he doesn't seem nearly as interested as Colin was. He seems to like to chew on his hands/fingers a lot and I wonder if he'll find his thumb soon and use that as his soothing mechanism. 

So that's the update on Dylan. I'm glad I did these updates for Colin as it's nice to remember what they are doing/like at different ages and look back. So hopefully I'll keep it up with Dylan.

 Here is a BIG photo dump from the last month: 

Snug as a bug after walking Big brother to school

First airplane ride-2 1/2 months

Charming our friend Walker

Dylan with cousin Emmie

First time sitting in the Bumbo

I spy a little dimple

Daddy and his boys 

All dressed up for church 

Colin likes to hold Dylan's hand in the car ( heart bursting!) 

Love love love this baby boy

Easter 2014

We had a busy Easter weekend. It started with a egg hunt and house warming party for our friends Chris and Lucie. That was followed by a date night for a Evan and I to celebrate our 5th year anniversary. We went to buy Evan a new suit so he can look his best at his oral board test in St.Louis. After that mission was accomplished, we headed over to the Capital Hotel in downtown Little Rock. I'd been wanting to try the bar and grille there and it did not disappoint. Most memorable was the pimento cheese appetizer and Knickerboxer cocktail. 

Sunday morning, the Easter bunny surprised Colin with a basket full of goodies and a new backpack full of some spring/summer clothes from Mommy and Daddy. The biggest hits were the ninja turtles water bottle and and buzz light year t shirt...not surprising since Colin is very into pretending to be a super hero these days. We headed to church for the 11am service followed by another brunch at one of Colin's school friends house. A busy weekend, and definitely a fun one! 

Easter egg dying 

Colin and our neighbor Evie 

He was not happy about the bow tie, it came off right after this picture

Colin with his school friend Cas after church