Date Night

George and I haven't been out on a date in a very long time! Unfortunately, we don't have family nearby who are willing/capable of watching Andrew, and we haven't found a good baby sitter. We have great friends and neighbors, but it would feel like we were inconveniencing them to ask them to watch him in the evenings. So basically that leaves us without a chance to go out and have a date night.

In the interest of trying to still be somewhat romantic and have a good time together out of the house, we decided to do a fun date night today. In the afternoon, haha. With the baby. It might not be a traditional "date", but it was still fun to get all dressed up and go out together. We went to Olive Garden, which isn't super fancy or anything, but was still amazing food.

Andrew even got dressed up with a tie!

How can you resist this cuteness?

He was a little bit fussy on the car ride over, so I was terrified he was going to be fussy at the restaurant. I hate those restaurant trips where you can't even carry on a conversation or enjoy the meal because you're constantly trying to distract the baby or figure out why he isn't feeling well or whatever. In those instances, I'd just rather be at home where I can soothe him better and he can be more comfortable and we don't have to deal with stares from strangers wondering why you can't make your baby be quiet!

Amazingly, however, the moment we put Andrew in the high chair, he was PERFECT! In the past, he's usually had to stay in his car seat (which he hates), or we have to hold him. He wasn't able to sit up enough or balance himself enough to be in a high chair. Today, though, we gave it a shot. I brought along our new little high chair/shopping cart cover and he LOVED it! I think he felt like a big boy sitting on his own! Plus, the cover has a loop so we could attach toys. We put his turtle on there and he played with it throughout most of the meal.

Our entire dinner took almost 2 hours. We talked, laughed, enjoyed each other's company, and ate some amazing food (4 courses!). We had a table on a corner, so everyone who passed by got a big smile from Andrew. Lots of people stopped by to tell us that he was just the cutest baby they'd ever seen :). I have to agree! He was such a perfect little man, so happy and smiley and content. Then, when we got home, he took a 2 1/2 hour nap!!! It was just about the perfect day.


I love my little family with all of my heart. Today is definitely one of those days where I feel so incredibly blessed to have such an amazing husband and baby boy. My heart is overflowing with joy and thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving in Georgia

Andrew's first visit to Georgia went well, all things considered. The drive down there took over 11 hours! YUCK! It was not the most pleasant day of my life, but we got there in one piece, thank goodness. :) The trip home went much smoother as we decided to leave the night before instead of in the morning. We left right as Andrew got sleepy for his bedtime (around 8:00) and he slept almost the entire way home! That trip only took about 8 hours, which was much more manageable.

The best part was getting to introduce Andrew to the rest of my family. He'd already met my brother and sister's family and my Mom and Dad, but he got to meet my cousins and aunts and uncle, which was great!

Unfortunately, we all three came home with some kind of yuck. I'm not feeling well tonight, so I'm calling it and heading to bed. Wanted to get a few pics up first though! Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Can't believe Christmas is just right around the corner...

One of my faves. My sister took this of Andrew sitting up in the leaves!

My family!

Andrew and his Nana

First Thanksgiving!

My cousin's little girl (13 mos.) pointing to Andrew's turkey, hehe.

 

 

Andrew sleeping on his Uncle Doug's shoulder.

Family portrait!

My parents, us and my brother's family. It was a beautiful day.

5 Months!

Happy 5 months old Sweet baby Andrew!!!!

Andrew turned 5 months old on Monday!! I thought I would take a few minutes and document his growth and milestones so far!

He's growing so much. He's very alert and always looking around, wanting to be a part of everything. He can grab toys so easily now. Of course, they go straight to his mouth! He's drooling like crazy, and we're thinking about putting bibs on him all the time because he just ends up with this ring of drool on his clothes, haha. He's sitting up tripod style, but can't quite hold himself up without the use of his hands.

He still isn't sleeping through the night most nights. Well, unless you go by the 5 hours stretch thing. I personally don't consider sleeping from 8:30 to 1:30 sleeping through the night! Especially not when he's sometimes up for hours at a time in the middle of the night. Eek! We are doing the best we can though, and hoping the sleep will continue to get better and better.

Food! Andrew loves to eat and is doing such a great job with solid foods. So far he's tried: Pear, Avocado, Apples, Green Beans, Sweet Potatoes and Butternut Squash. He's also had oatmeal and rice cereal. I think his favorite is the butternut squash, so I made LOTS of it and froze it into little cubes. I bought a Ninja food processor (which I'm loving) and make his food in big batches, then freeze it in ice cube trays. When it's frozen, I take it out and put the cubes into labeled ziplock bags in the freezer. Easy peasy! It's been a lot of fun to make Andrew's food, and I can't wait to try more variety and start mixing things in fun combinations. It won't be long until he's done with purees and on to finger foods!

We didn't make it to his 4 month well child visit/vaccinations, so we went yesterday instead. He is 16lbs, 9oz. (50th percentile) and 26.5 inches tall (75th percentile), so he is tall and just a little skinny, which she said is normal for breastfed babies at this stage. He's very healthy and did a great job with his shots. Again, we declined polio, hepB and rotavirus, but went ahead with DTaP, Hib and the pneumonia one. They didn't seem to bother him too much, so that's great! I love that he's so healthy and strong.

He's spending a lot of time in his exersaucer lately. He loves it! It's his favorite place to play, so he's in it at least an hour every day. He loves going for walks either in the Baby Bjorn or in the stroller. He also loves music. Every time I start to sing to him, he gets this big cheesy grin on his face. It's so adorable! Andrew is such a happy baby, smiling all the time! It melts my heart!

Cheesy Grin!

It's hard to believe he's almost halfway to a year. The six month mark will be here before we know it, I'm sure. Life with baby is still an adjustment, but I'm loving being a mom to the cutest baby boy on the planet.