Sutton's First Christmas { Part 1 - Christmas Eve }

On Christmas Eve, Adam and I went to our church's Christmas Eve Service along with my parents and my brother and his wife. Afterwards, we all headed back to Newton to celebrate the Funk Family Christmas.

Michael and Sara with Sutton. They live in Colorado and are moving to Washington in February, so they don't get to see their cute little nephew nearly as much as they'd like. They hadn't seen him since they came down in July just after he was born.

Our tradition is to make everyone's favorite foods and we just pig out. M & S made sushi.

Even Adam joined in on the cooking fun and made his famous nachos.

Dad making the traditional bacon wrapped shrimp.

Sutton bear hung out in his jumper and the dogs kept bringing him their toys because they figured he looked like he wanted to play. I got that on video, but not in any photos.

Since food is always a big part of our Christmas Eve celebration, and since it was also Sutton's 6 month birthday, we decided to give him his first taste of baby food. Once again, we took video and not really any photos til after the fact. But he didn't really like it. We tried peas first and he made all kinds of funny faces. When we tried sweet potatoes, he actually swallowed some. We'll try again later. :)

The aftermath. We had tons of leftovers.

Sutton's first gift!!!

If we tore the paper a little for him, he would grab it, and then we'd help him tear it off. He did great.

He got some books and toys that he already loves!

My parents had a new kitchen sink installed a couple weeks ago, so my dad made a mini sink out of wood and wrapped it for my mom to open on Christmas. :)

We gave Sara a cute umbrella since they're moving to rainy Washington.

Playing in the wrapping paper with Grandma...

After all the gifts were open, we sat around talking for awhile and then played a game called "To Tell the Truth." It was a good time, and since it was late, we were all a little goofy. Sutton fell asleep and then we headed home. I love having a smaller family, we have a great time together!

Merry Christmas!

Sutton { Six Months }

My sweet Sutton baby is six months old today! I can hardly believe it. I was thinking about how I can't believe he's already half a year old, but then I realized that I can't believe I've only known him for half a year! Adam and I are so incredibly blessed to have the most calm, funny, handsome, and amazing baby. Happy 6 months to my sweet boy....I love you!

 

Sutton, at 6 months:

-You're still such a happy baby. We love playing with you and getting smiles out of you. You give us the biggest smiles when we startle you, which is so weird but hilarious.

-You know your name! You definitely turn your head when we say "Suttoooon!"

-You're sleeping from about 9pm to 8:30am. Generally we eat once or twice during that time. We still swaddle you for night and plug you up with your pacifier.  

-I think you look like my baby pictures in the photo below. I don't have any to post on here, but I'll have to get some.

-You loooooooove your daddy. He gets the biggest smiles.

-You're eating about every 4 hours. Sometimes you go quite a bit longer, but generally right at 4 hours.

-You're wearing size 3 diapers.

-You've discovered your tongue. In the photo below, you're sticking it out and trying to blow a raspberry. That's a new thing, blowing raspberries, and it's super cute. You also stick your tongue out when we put our finger on your lips and you like to lick things.

-When you see us holding your pacifier, you immediately open your mouth wide. You're not very dependent on your pacifier except for at night.

-You had your first cold this month. It was scary. For about a week, you had a runny nose and watery eyes, but you were still as happy as ever. Then, just as I thought we were almost better, you woke up at 3:45am one night hacking and coughing with such a hoarse little cry. It sounded like you couldn't breathe. I brought you into our bed and sat up with you for the rest of the night so you could sleep upright on my chest. I took you to the doctor and everything was fine, but she suggested raising your mattress and using a cool mist humidifier, so that's what we did. You even slept in your carseat one night. And you slept 3 nights in your bouncy seat in our room so that you could be even more propped up. You're still on the tail end of getting over it.

 

-We tried rice cereal and hated it. I mix it with breastmilk and try different consistencies, but you still just don't like it. I think it's just because you don't like having a spoon feeding you. But you gotta get used to it, buddy! We've tried about 6 times and still haven't had a ton of success. We're going to try regular baby food tonight (Christmas Eve!) for the first time, we'll see how that goes. You may not be ready for it.

-When you're falling asleep on my chest, you make noise. It's like you're humming, but your eyes are closed. Sometimes you'll do it for up to 10 minutes if you're having trouble falling asleep. So funny.

-You love getting kisses on your neck. It makes you giggle hysterically.

-How cute is this picture?!?!?! A new favorite.

-You're getting into things more now. When I sit you on the bathroom counter in your Bumbo while I'm getting ready in the morning, you knock over all my hairspray bottles and take makeup out of my makeup bag. So I have to clear off everything around you and make sure you can see the mirror because you love looking at yourself.

-You know Mommy and Daddy. When we're in group settings and other people are holding you, you always try to find us and look at us. You also turn when you hear our voices.

-You've started typing. You love hitting the keys on my keyboard...particularly the spacebar. One day, you typed this symbol... ç ...which I had no idea how to do, so I had to figure it out for myself. You've also typed to your daddy on Instant Messenger while he was at school and we were at home. And once when Daddy was watching you, you typed Mommy a whole letter!

 

-You're becoming a lot more vocal, you love to yell and spit and laugh and talk.

-You love jumping more than even and have even been known to make a jumping motion in your sleep.

-When sitting in your Bumbo, you sometimes push your belly up and out as if you can get out. But your legs aren't going anywhere...we have to push to get them to fit in the Bumbo in the first place because they're so big!

-You still aren't rolling over, but you love to roll onto your side. You also are really good at standing. We barely have to give you any support. Sometimes I have trouble getting you to sit down and have to make you bend your legs.

-Edit: After our doctor's appointment on the 27th, here are your stats:

Height - 26 1/2 inches, 50th percentile

Weight - 20 pounds, 2 ounces, <90th percentile

Head Circumference: 18 3/4 inches, >97th percentile

And here's our monthly comparison.

 

I plan on taking a bunch more photos around the Christmas tree tomorrow when he's in his cute Christmas outfit. Be prepared!

The Smartest Dog

I don't even know where to begin.

Adam and I just came home from the movie store, and we found a lid a spoon on the ground from the take-out soup I had for lunch.

Where was the cup?

We looked everywhere. No styrofoam cup. Also, no excited Doberman to greet us at the door.

We knew it was the big dog because he had to get on top of our dining room table to get to the soup cup.

Adam starts turning the lights on in each room, wondering where he'll find the cup. He turns on the bedroom light...

There's no getting out of this one, he was caught red-handed.

Out in the Shop

Christmas Card

Merry Christmas, from our family to yours!

Do you know how long I've waited to have my baby on my Christmas card? :)

Christmas Craft { Kind Of }

Let me just start out by saying that I know this could've been done so much better. But this is how I did it and it's fine. Can you tell I'm not a perfectionist? :)

I had seen/heard of versions of this before, so I decided it'd be a good idea to stick my baby's hand in red paint to make an ornament. I tried to enlist Adam's help, but all he did was get paint on the baby's face.

I started by putting Sutton up on the counter in his Bumbo. See how he's pushing his belly out? He does this thing where he scares me because he acts like he can get out of the Bumbo and he nearly succeeds. Stop, baby.

He just has no idea what's about to go down.

Sometimes I get distracted and just take a bunch of photos of him and forget what I was doing. I finally got out the ornaments. This photo is blurry and out of focus, but it's cute.

I rolled up his sleeve and squirted red paint into his hand. When he closed his fist around it, it immediately made me cringe, but I had to remind myself that that was the point, to get paint all over his hand. Adam held his hand facing up as I placed an ornament in it. The first two tries were very smeary and unrecognizable. On the third try, we got an imperfect but perfect one. I set the ornament on a paper towel to dry, turn back and find that Adam has gotten paint on the baby's face. Then he leaves me (to go find things around our house that he can put on Craigslist) with a mess to clean up.

Luckily I'd thought ahead and had a wet paper towel nearby. So I started cleaning the paint off, but the combo of the cold/wet paper towel and his daddy leaving and me forcing him to keep his hand out made for one.mad.baby. There was screaming and tears. And red paint.

But I think it turned out pretty cute! As you can tell, we used small ornaments. I think a big one may have been better.

I decided we needed a set. So Adam and I put our thumbprints on one. It's a little family of ornaments.

I tore apart our house looking for some paintbrushes I knew we had so I could paint our names on the back. I still cannot find them. I got exasperated and used a red Sharpie. I feel that you can sense my annoyance through the not-so-pretty handwriting. Oh well. They're done and on our tree. Whew. :)

This morning we tried to take a trip to the dog park. As soon as we left our house, I discovered that I forgot our baby front-pack carrier thing.

Scha-nnoying.

Then, when I tried to take a pic of Diesel pouting in the backseat, I found I'd forgotten a memory card for my camera.

Ugh. Very scha-nnoying.

When we got to the dog park, I bundled Sutton up and we got out of the car. He lasted 5 minutes and cried twice. So we got back in the car to play while Adam held Axl back from attacking the other dogs and Diesel barked at everyone/thing. About 30 seconds after I got in the car, I saw the three of them heading our way...blood was pouring (that may be an exaggeration) from Axl's paw.

Schfantastic.

So Adam rubber-banded a napkin around it (that was all we could find in the car) and we headed home where we cleaned and wrapped it properly. We still have no idea what happened, but we have the most sensitive Doberman known to man, so most likely he stepped wrong on a blade of grass. He's resting comfortably on my bed.