Whoa

I captured this picture of Matthew FILLING the space in his swing. I have a big boy!

Halloween!

For Halloween, we had special visitors and Matthew acquired some new and exciting skills! Ross's parents came into town on Thursday before Halloween and stayed until Monday morning, and we had a great time. I just happened to call them Thursday right before my lunch break and they had just pulled into town, so I jetted off to meet them for lunch at the Spicy Pickle--so fun! On Friday, Matt got to play hookie and stay home with Grandma and Pawpaw, and then on Saturday our neighborhood had a little festival/dinner, followed by trick-or-treaters. It was really fun because we had a lot of kids come to our house---a lot more than I remember from last year for some reason. Matthew was a bumble bee for his first Halloween. It is now a tradition in our family that the boys (Connor, Gavin, and now Matthew) have been a bee for their first Halloween, which I love.
Matthew has developed some new skills over the past week or so that I was able to catch on camera. He started eating cereal several weeks ago, and he now has quite a knack for it! He also has an intense interest in his feet now--I sort of helped him figure out they were there, and since then he has started grabbing his feet every chance he gets. I'm expecting they will be in his mouth before too long! I'll definitely post pics of that when it happens.

 Hanging out with Grandma!

 So yummy!

 Grandma, Matthew, and Pawpaw

 Me, the Bee, and Ross (I LOVE his face in this pic!)

 "WHAT did you put on me?!?"

 I have toes!!!!! New toy!

That was fun!

4 Month Check-Up

Matt had his four month check-up on Friday, and it could not have gone any better. He was so happy and talking during the entire visit. Plus, a couple of things have worried me, and it is so reassuring for a doctor to look at my child and say everything is fine. For instance, Matt really fights his bottles at daycare and often fights me when I am nursing him at home during the day on weekends. I always worry he might have thrush or really bad gas or that he has a negative thoughts about eating. In fact, the daycare told me last week that most of the girls who work in the infant room don't like to be the one to feed him because he cries when he takes a bottle. Thanks. That made me feel Grrrreat. They told me I should let Ross feed him a bottle more often (um, hello? I'm breastfeeding and trying to keep the supply going, people). I'm easy to guilt trip, and they found my weakness.
So anyway, the doctor said that it was normal for him to not be hungry all the time, and that it is human nature to NOT go hungry if food is available, so not to worry if he fights the bottle...just wait till he is hungry enough not to care what it comes in.
Also, the doctor gave us some tips to get Matt to sleep through the night instead of waking up every three hours for a snack. Sleep-training time!
So his stats for now are that he is 16 lbs 19 oz and I think something like 26 inches long. When the pediatrician came in, he called Matt a hoss. =) For some reason, I really like that Matt is a big 'ole boy. I've always wanted a big baby (just not at birth for obvious reasons; though that doesn't matter now, considering I had the dreaded C-Section). I got one! So much to love! Anyway, seeing as how we've had a milestone doctor appointment, I thought I'd list a few things he is doing now:

• Rolling over from his belly to his back (why be on my belly when I can see the world on my back??)
• Raising up on his arms in a mini push-up
• Crinkling his nose when he smiles
• Smiling the moment he wakes up and sees his momma or daddy
• Babbling at us like we're having a conversation
• Laughing (especially at his daddy when he makes toot sounds)
• Grabbing at objects held near him and bringing them to his face
• Looking SO much like both Ross and me--I love seeing both of us in his face =)

Of course, Matt got his 4 month shots at his visit, and he was such a big boy. He cried just for a second and then was fine, but in the two days since he has had them, he has acted like he doesn't feel good at all and has slept quite a bit. Poor baby!

Our House

When we moved, we REALLY missed our old house in Kingwood. There are so many things it has that the new house does not (great landscaping and builder extras). However, the new house has a few things that we didn't have before. We have a much bigger lot (1 1/3 acres) which is super private, a pretty cool playhouse for Matt when he is bigger, and more rooms, which is great for when our families come see us. Anyway, I've taken a few neat pics of the new place that I thought I'd share (and I'm thinking of Celie as I write/post this).
Things we are planning on doing with this house:

• Take out the sucker trees in the back (almost done!)
• Landscape the back and add flowers
• Possibly add gutters (houses in Mississipp RARELY have these I have found)
• Add sod in the lower front of the property

Mitchell Farms

I've been wanting to go to a pumpkin patch for the last several weeks and we finally found one (courtesy of Helen Price!) just outside of Collins, Mississippi, which is about 45 minutes away. I wanted to get some good pictures of Matthew, possibly in his costume, and for the price of admission, you get a pumpkin. Well, sorry to disappoint, but I didn't get that many pictures. By the time we managed to get there, it was about 11 am, so it was getting a little sunny for good pics, and Matt was pretty warm in his bumble bee costume. We were maybe there for 45 minutes, but I know he will really enjoy the place when he's bigger. They had ALL sorts of fun games for kids, like a tube slide, a rope swing (I wish I could have gotten on!), and the biggest hay ride I have EVER seen. Really cool. Not so much fun for a 3 1/2 month old, though. I really wish I would have taken more pics around the pumpkins--those turned out pretty decent with them all in the background!

 Mitchell Farms had quite a few animals created out of the haystacks--this was a cute pig.

 Great pumpkins! Notice the HUGE hay stack mouse in the background?

My boys!

Learning new things!

Tummy Time
There are so many things Matt is doing these days, it's hard to list them all.  I think I've mentioned on Facebook how much Matt HATES tummy time, but he is slowly starting to get used to it. I don't put him on his belly nearly enough, I think, so I've been worried that he isn't developing fast enough in the head-lifting department (typical first-time mom stuff), but we put him down yesterday, and LO and BEHOLD, he lifted his head 90 degrees! Yay, Matt! And he enjoyed himself for, hmm, two minutes.
The Truth about Sleeping
Another topic that I have not really talked about much for fear of devine retribution are the sleeping habits of my 13 1/2 week old. When he was born, he ate every 3 hours, which was quickly replaced by enforced 2 hour increments because he lost too much weight after birth. WELL, he got to where he liked that pattern. A lot. It wasn't until daycare started that he got back to eating every three hours. Yes people, my child has been waking me every 3 hours to eat, and no, Ross can't help because I'm breastfeeding. Every now and then another parent with an infant talks about how their little precious is sleeping through the night and I secretly hope they are lying or delusional about what constitutes a full night of sleep--just my envy talking. I haven't wanted to complain too much though, since Matt goes down at 7 pm and doesn't officially "get up" before 6 am...it's just the 9:30 pm, 1:00 am, and 4:30 am interruptions in slumber that I could do without. This weekend, after several nights of attempting unsuccessfully to cut down the night feedings, Matt finally went a whole night with only one night feeding! Progress! Another good thing is that from day one we've committed to not letting him sleep in bed with us for several reasons: we could roll on top of him (scary!), the gazillion pillows are in the way, and we could probably NEVER get him out of our bed once he got used to it. At two months we moved him from the pack 'n play in our room to his very own (and to me, expensive) crib. That has been a surprisingly easy transition aside from again, the number of times we get up in the middle of the night.

Here are some other things that he has been doing recently:

• sucking on his fingers
• smiling ALL the time, especially at momma, daddy, and Miss Christine at daycare
• sorta laughing...no belly laughs, yet, though
• watching Sasha as she walks by
• blew raspberries at Ross (say it don't spray it, buddy!)
• watches football--we definitely have a TV watcher on our hands!
• talking to (and hollering at) us
• rolling over to his side

So fun! We are really enjoying this little guy. He can be a little frustrating sometimes when we just don't know what's wrong, but we are learning pretty quickly how to respond to him. That and the smiles that show us how much he loves his momma and daddy make the crying so much easier to deal with.

Bloggin' away!

Here goes! I never thought I would be a blogger, but now that we've moved away from family and friends (and I don't come close to talking on the phone enough) I am going to give it a go. No promises, though--I'm not sure that I will have all that interesting of stuff to put in, aside from cute pics of our kid. A big part of wanting to do this is to keep the grandparents in the loop as to how Matthew is growing and changing (I sure hope y'all are reading this! Here's your chance!) since we don't get to see y'all all that often. I know you are all going through Matthew withdrawals.  
For the most part, this is my attempt to tell you all how much we love you all and miss you and wish we could see you more. I'm not sure how quick I will be at posting as I try to get used to using this blog, but I'll try to post as often as I can.
Enjoy!
The Mississippi Dillons