Granny Lynn's halloween treat

Below is a video we took of Triston and Devon enjoying the Halloween treat sent to us from Granny Lynn

Smiles and moves

It's been a little while since I posted...and in true "new mommy" fashion, I'll be writing mostly about our little 8month old. Yes, Triston will be 8 months tomorrow! I can't believe it. I told someone yesterday that the first 3 months went by fairly slow, but now...now time is going by too fast! He is growing and exploring and moving and, and....so much so fast! He keeps us smiling non-stop. His favorite game is peek-a-boo, and now he's taken to being the one who's doing the "hiding." His smiles and laughs are true medicine to the soul. He's babbling all the time with us and starting to copy some of our intonations. His new sound that he's discovered he can do is a little growl. A growl has never been so cute. A little over a week ago he started crawling, and now he has pretty much perfected it. He hasn't realized he can crawl from room to room yet, but he's just about to do that. I'm looking forward to the day when he comes crawling down the hallway to see me :-) He plays mostly all over our living room. It's amazing what he goes for...essentially anything he shouldn't touch. He has books and toys all over the room, but he goes for the books on the bookshelf, the lamp cord underneath the end table, etc. I'm sure he is beginning to recognize the words "no" and "no touch" but he's showing no signs of understanding what they mean, ha ha. It is a JOY to spend days with him.  He's already starting to pull up on stuff!  And a couple times I've gone into his room and he's standing up in his bed.  He's getting so big so fast!   Below are a few pictures from our recent weeks.

Playing outside watching the crew replace our roof

Daddy and Triston.  Amazing how these two have my heart so much.  (sorry about the terrible background!)

Trying to eat the grass while playing outside :-)

Family self portrait

Wearing daddy's App hat!

Ok, so our "playing" outside turned into a little bit of a photo session

I took this pic this morning.  Instead of crawling around this, he crawled under and through it.  It was pretty impressive.

Is he learning to smile for the camera?

This was his first day crawling.  I walked out of the room for a minute and when I came back in he had found this bag (it's the bag I take to/from work with all my pumping stuff)

He loves to crawl up to this mirror and play with the baby

And try to kiss the baby

Thanks for reading my ramblings!!!

a few ramblings

It's been a month or so since I've posted, so thought I'd just ramble a bit.  All is going well with life in Shelby, NC.  Devon and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary several weeks ago.  Triston spent the night away for the first time.  It was definitely harder on mommy than Triston!  He had a wonderful time with grandma and grandpa and Kimberly, Jamie, and Lily!  And Devon and I had a wonderful time enjoying our day.  Funny how easy it is to forget how things were before a baby.  And Triston continues to grow right before our very eyes.  It is  a m a z i n g  !!!    I still am awed that God is giving us the honor of being his parents.  I know everyone says the love of a child is a kind of love you've never had before...they are right.  There are no words to put on how much love I have for this little 6 1/2 month old being. 

Well several hours have passed since I started this post and now I cannot remember things I wanted to ramble about.  Probably good for all of us that things got busy for a while and my memory is bad :-)  I'll put a few pics from the recent weeks.

I know this picture was in my last post about our visit to Wisconsin to see relatives and for Triston to meet his great grandpa.  We are so blessed we were able to go less than two months ago and see him, as he passed away from a short battle of lung cancer on 9/5/11.  We love and miss you, grandpa.

Go App!

Love this picture of my boys! Triston was getting to play in daddy's jeep a little bit... 

and he liked it!

Thanks to a chilly couple days, we discovered how cute these cheeks are in a hoody

Travels and growings

We've had a busy past month. Below are some pics of our travels and our growing little guy:

Skyping in Wisconsin with some cousins in California

Triston and Aunt Nancy

Triston and his Great-Grandpa :-)

Great-Grandpa and the kiddies

Grandpa and the travelors :-)  Robbie, Annie, and Nathanael drove from Shelby to Milwaukee, WI and Devon and I flew with the two babies for a long weekend visit.  Well worth the travel!!!

Next weekend a long weekend visit in Cary, NC to see adopted grandparents, Grandpa Joe and Grandma Betty and my wonderful friend, Erica

Sweet smiles!

Sweet Erica and Sweet Triston

Then to Raleigh to see my great friends (and old roomates) Jeanett and Rosemary, to celebrate both of their birthdays.  Unfortunately the only pictures I have from that visit are Triston in the pool for the first time :-(

found a great deal on the Jenny Jumper so didn't even bother looking for the Johnny Jumper.  We figure he won't mind if it's pink. 

I'm sitting up better and better every day!  And, in other news...I got my 1st TWO teeth and am working on a couple more!  (wow...)

smitten with daddy

So, one of the most precious things I get to observe these days is how smitten Triston is with his daddy.  It really is amazing.  I mean, I get smiles...but daddy...daddy gets giddy smiles and arm & leg flails.  It is PRECIOUS.  Here's an example:  Our night time routine is I feed Triston then read to him and then Devon comes in and prays for us before I lay him down for the night.  Well the other night after feeding Triston he was pretty much asleep sitting up while I was trying to get a burp out of him.  Devon came in to ask me a question and put some of Triston's laundry away.  Triston, with his eyes still closed, perked up and followed Devon's voice as Devon walked around the room.  His eyes eventually opened up and sure enough, gave a beautiful smile to daddy.  Then when Devon prayed for us, Triston was trying to touch his face the whole time during the prayer.  Really, one of the sweetest things I'm blessed to observe these days.   I sure am blessed by my boys...

Update on Triston :-)  We just had his 4mo check up (although he is closer to 5mo).  He weighed in at 17lbs13.5oz and 24.5in.  We've got a little football player on our hands!  He got a couple more shots, and neither Triston or mommy liked them.  These immunization shots stress me out.  He had a rough 24-36hrs after the shots, but by the looks at the picture above that I just snapped, I think he's feeling better this morning :-)

4 months old

It's hard to believe Triston is 4 months old already!  It partly seems like he's been here forever and the other part feels like time has flown by.  I guess that's a normal thing for people to say.

Well, he's had a big past couple weeks.  He's at that age now where he seems to be learning and exploring things all the time.  He's definitely starting to grab and hold things...and most of the time he's trying to put them in his mouth.  Last week alone he discovered his feet and thumbs :-)  Last night on the changing table he was trying so hard to grab his right foot and pull it into his mouth.  I think his belly is what's hindering him there!  He's starting to laugh!  Oh, and it is so precious.  So if he starts to laugh at something Devon or I am doing, you can count on the fact that we do it over and over and over cause we want to keep hearing that precious sound.  I snapped a couple pictures of him this afternoon.

Have I said lately how blessed I am?...

Thanks for reading :-)

cloth diapers

I don't know why this has gotten me so excited...but it does.  Devon was able to put a clothes line up for me last night and today I was almost giddy about getting to hang Triston's cloth diapers outside in the sun.  It's amazing what the sun does to them!  Any stains left after washing are bleached out...and sanitized.  Don't ask me why this excites me so much...i think I'm still giddy.  I just got done going out there to see how they were doing and they're looking marvelous.  We're slowly getting our supply up.  This is all we have so far, so we only have enough for about 2 full days of use, but I've got some more ordered now.  One of the pics below is of the inside of the diapers and the other is of the outside.  I wanted to show off how cute they are.  Cloth diapers have come a LONG WAY since we were babies.  I really did change my little brother's cloth diapers and was always so afraid I was going to poke him with the safety pins.  I remember being amazed at how easy and quick my mom always did it.  Below the pics of the diapers are a couple recent pics of our little (big) guy.  He's starting to actually enjoy tummy time and pushes up.  This is a picture Devon snapped of the first time he pushed himself up with his hands.  The other pic is one Devon sent me this week while at work saying "full and happy" after he had gotten done eating.  I know I've said this before, and I pray I continue to say it every day and not forget...we are truly blessed.