Wednesday, December 26, 2012

8 Months of W.T.F.

I swear my baby smiles. In fact, he's one of the happiest babies I've ever met. He smiles a LOT. Almost constantly. But you wouldn't know it from looking at pictures of him. Whip out a camera and he instantly goes from this:


To this:
When he was really little, I used to think that he was just so perplexed and fascinated by the camera that all he wanted to do was stare at it and try to figure it out. But as he's getting older, he's had his picture taken thousands of times. And I'm starting to think he's doing this just to annoy me. Regardless, I've always called it his WTF face, and here's some great examples of it over the past eight months. 


























Rhett's First Christmas!

This Christmas, we were blessed to be able to travel all the way to Phoenix, AZ to meet up with Josh's whole family for Rhett's first Christmas. Rhett has had a marvelous time getting to know all of his cousins. They like to put various hats on him:
Rhett thinks the kids are pretty funny. He laughs and chases them all around. The girls love to give him various toys to hold. They've been having a lot of fun with him. 

Rhett also loves to open Christmas presents. His latests favorite activity is ripping paper, so opening gifts is right up his alley. He has a lot of fun with the wrapping paper. After our Christmas celebration, the floor was covered in tissue and wrapping paper. He was in heaven. 



Josh's brothers and sisters have also enjoyed seeing him. We are so excited to get to spend this holiday season with everyone. Everyone loves to see the baby and he's getting in a lot of quality time with all of his family members. 
Rhett go home. You are drunk.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Rhett at Eight Months

Rhett continues growing and changing before our very eyes! We love him so much. We are very blessed. He's turning into a little boy, and we could not be more thrilled with him. This month he finally started crawling! He scoots all around the floor grabbing at anything that catches his fancy. He loves playing with his toys, particularly small ones that he can pick up and pass from hand to hand. He really likes books that have large faces--he laughs at his books. He also really enjoys paper of any kind--ripping it is his favorite activity.  He's also starting to become quite bossy. He doesn't much like his diaper being changed and will get very angry and let you know it!

We switched Rhett over to his larger carseat this month, which has made car rides much more tolerable. He likes someone to talk to in the car, and likes to have something to play with. He's been eating well and made the transition to formula without any fuss.

Rhett is SUCH a good baby. We're very spoiled. He's so happy with life all the time. He laughs and smiles all the time and is equally happy to play independently or with mom and dad. Josh's favorite game is give-mom-a-heart-attack, in which he flips Rhett completely over in his arms. Rhett thinks it's a BLAST, but I'm certain that Josh is going to break his neck one of these days. I'm trying to nip it in the bud.

Here's some photos from this month! A lot of them are repeats from facebook, but with my Christmas money, I am planning on purchasing a DSLR, and I'm going to devote a good amount of time this spring to learning how to shoot with it, so expect lots of photo posts to come!






Sandy Hook Reflections

It's been almost two weeks since I logged onto the internet and first got word of the evil that left a nation heartbroken and parents like myself desperate for comfort and hope for a better future for our children. I wanted to write briefly about my thoughts and feelings over the incident, not because I feel like my readers need my comments, but because I believe that some day my children will have sons and daughters of their own, and they will have to learn how to raise them in a world where such occurrences are possible. I want to remember what it's like to hear about destroyed families and lost children so that I can turn it into some kind of wisdom about how to live in such a world. I thankfully don't have to explain Sandy Hook to Rhett right now. He goes on his merry life, not knowing anything of the pain and devastation that the nation has felt over the past two weeks. But some day I will. No matter what gun control laws are (hopefully) passed, some day, Rhett is going to turn on the news and see a falling tower,or a school shooting or a building with a bomb. He's going to wonder how their can be such evil in the world, and how we can believe in a God that allows such evil to exist. Along with millions of Americans, I wept for the city of Newtown this week. I wept for parents who will never hold their children again. And I wept to think about Rhett realizing some day that life is sometimes just so shitty.With my son in my arms, I wept and prayed and screamed until I didn't have the energy to do it anymore.  True and deep evil exists and it is all around us. And there's nothing that we can do but cling to the hope of our lives in heaven. In difficult and evil times, there's nothing to say that makes sense other than this: someday, all of our pain and tears will be washed away. We do have the joy of looking forward to our life in heaven with Christ.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Rhett got a big bear




Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving we were thankful for GRANDPARENTS! My parents came out all the way from Virginia to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. Rhett had such a fun time with Grandma and Grandpa!




Tuesday, November 20, 2012

My Sweet Boy


Visiting Oma and Opa!



While Josh has been on quarter break, we've had some time to head over to Peoria and visit his parents--Rhett just loves spending time with Oma and Opa! He gets so much love and attention and he just eats it right up. He was exhausted when we got home, but it was worth it. We love getting to spend time with grandparents!







Photo Dump 3-6 Months

Some little-seen photos of Rhett--3-6 months

Rhett at Seven Months


My baby is seven months old! I've always thought of six months as a line. Once you hit it, you're no longer a little baby. You're a big baby! In stature, Rhett is still a pretty little boy. But his mind is growing every day and we can really see the changes in him all the time! He's developing such a little personality. He loves to laugh with us, and really enjoys being the center of attention. He's not pleased when play time is cut short for silly things like naps and bottles.
"MY new toy! Not for you!"
"This is my bread"
He's gotten the hang of purees--he's tried avocado  banana, carrots, sweet potato, squash, green beans, peas, apples and probably a few that I'm forgetting. His favorite so far is bananas and he's never thrilled when carrots are on the menu. He's not enthusiastic about feeding himself yet. It's funny because he's at the stage where toys (and pretty much everything) goes directly in his mouth. But put a cracker in front of that kid and he will just crush it up and throw it around the room.

He is THIS CLOSE to crawling. He can get up on all fours and scoot around pretty well. I'm sure he's just going to take off one of these days. I'm still enjoying his immobility. It's nice to be able to set him down on  the carpet and go to the bathroom without having to worry about him too much.

"Daddies are fun!"
Rhett loves his daddy so much. I don't know what it is about those two, but they just have so much fun together. When I come home from work, Josh always has a new 'trick' to show me that they learned from each other that day (today it was that if you kid Rhett's belly over and over, he laughs like a madman). It's sweet to see what a special bond they have.
Rhett can sit up on his own really well now. He can even get into sitting position by himself sometimes. He likes to sit and watch everything. He usually gets pretty upset if he tips over though. He's frustrated that he doesn't have more control over his body. Soon, buddy.

Rhett thinks the world is hilarious. He laughs when we laugh and also loves airplane, peek-a-boo, being upside down, being tickled and of course, his belly getting kissed. It is such a joy to see him so happy all the time. We feel truly blessed by our little boy.