Thankful

 We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends here in Albuquerque.

We have so much to be thankful for.  This year, Nathan tops the list.  I mean, just look at this bundle of joy!

We gave him a little bit of mashed potatoes, which he thought was fun to eat (though it is a bit more solid than he is used to, so we just gave him a couple bites).

Thanksgiving was a lovely warm day, but last week we actually got snow!  Nathan didn't seem to notice the snow accumulating on his head, but he did like touching leaves with snow.

And these cheeks!  Love them!

Nathan is so fun, not least because we get to dress him in cute coordinating outfits.  He is such a sweet happy boy!  

Nathan has been expressing his adorable personality in a new way recently: scrunching up his face and breathing in and out real quick to show his excitement.  Seriously cute!

Scrapping in Gold

Gold is big in the scrapbooking and fashion world right now, and these next couple layouts have a lot of it!  This first layout is of our celebration of me making partner, which is based on the Paper Issues November sketch.

And I was inspired by the Sketch-N-Scrap November sketch for this layout of Jesse's triathlon and 10k.

And here are these two layouts side by side.

Our Big Boy

Every time we turn around Nathan is doing something new.  Seriously, in the past two weeks he has learned to sit by himself, said da-da, got in 3 new teeth, and has started to crawl!  And those are just the biggies!  This is such a fun stage of life.  

Nathan hated sitting for so long, and was quite terrible at it.  Then, all of a sudden, he did it amazingly well and acted like it was no big deal!  Now that he is sitting well, we decided to give the swings at our playground a try, and he loves it!  

Here are some good shots of him sitting independently.  He is really good at keeping his balance, even when he is reaching down to grab something.

And yes, he is still attacking and trying to ingest everything in sight, no matter how big!

We don't have any videos of him saying da-da (he only says it occasionally, and almost never on cue), or pictures of his three new teeth on top (we haven't even tried to wrangle him down to photograph those little nubs), but we have the video of him crawling.  Well, scooting is more like it. This happened Thursday night when he was trying to get my purse, which I try not to let him play with.  I was sitting right by him when I realized he had the purse handle in his mouth.  We wondered how that could have happened because it was directly in front of him, and he can't move that way without crawling forward.  So we tested it and put the purse in front of him again to see if he would crawl towards it and he did!  He has gotten better at it and scoots like a little inchworm to get whatever toy he is interested in.  In related news, Jesse and I are busy baby proofing!

Baby Dedication

Last Sunday we had baby dedications.  Nathan is such a gift from God and we wanted to dedicate him to God because we know that God loves him even more than we do and that we can trust Nathan into God's sovereign hands.  We pray that Nathan will grow to be faithful and courageous in his walk with God.

We love this dear sweet boy!

7 Month Recap

I can't believe my baby is seven months old already!  Time flies.  Here is a recap of little moments from last month that I haven't had a chance to blog about yet:

As the nights get colder and darker, our evening walks have gotten shorter and snugglier, which is great for Nathan, who couldn't be happier than when he is being held wrapped up in a blanket.  My little snuggle-bunny!

He also kind of sits . . . sometimes.  He really hates it though (don't let that cute expression fool you -- he was unhappy the next second).

Nathan makes us laugh constantly.  In this picture, he had just let go of his monkey toy, which swung back (startling him), and he made this face (cracks me up every time I see it)!

He has gotten a lot better at grabbing and holding on to things, and loves playing with his toys.

He has also started to be much more interested in looking at himself in the mirror.

It has gotten chilly here in the evenings, so we put Nathan in his adorable bear outerwear for the first time.

And he continues to try to eat everything in sight (still working on the next set of teeth).  In this video, he very adorably opens his mouth to try to eat the little toys dangling from his car seat.  Too cute!

Veggies & Fruit

This past month we have been introducing fruits and veggies to our sweet pea.  Bottom line: he loves veggies and hates fruit.  Go figure!

His first veggie was squash, and while he wasn't sure at first, he decided it was oh-so-good and gobbled it down.

His first green vegetable was sweet peas, which apparently was the one food Jesse hated as a baby. Once we watered it down a bit, he ate it like a champ!

And he seemed to enjoy carrots when Chloe helped us feed him some for the first time.

Nathan does not love green beans, but he still eats them all up!

And the last veggie that we tried (sweet potatoes) were a big hit!

Despite being an amazing eater (and quite the hungry little boy), he does not like fruit.  At all.  We tried apple, and he made this face:

Trust me, it wasn't a sour granny smith apple -- it was nice, sweet, mushy apples.  Nope.  Hated it. Same with pear, even when we gave it to him in watered down juice form:

He seriously cracks us up, but this complete lack of a sweet tooth makes me wonder how it is possible that he is related to me.  In other feeding news, he has occasionally held the bottle when we feed him and has been able to do it all by himself!

All Dressed Up

It's Nathan's first Halloween!  We dressed him up as Totoro from Studio Ghibli.  He is so darn cute and cuddly in his outfit!

Halloween is not the only time we dress this cutie patootie up.  Here is Nathan as an 80s rockster, 

and who doesn't love Monsters Inc.?

Babies are so fun.