No More Swaddling!

Danielle decided to get brave a few weeks ago while I was away for a night and give Nolan a try at sleeping with his arms unswaddled. Amazingly he did quite well and has been sleeping in a "sleep sack" with his arms loose for a couple of weeks now.

What a relief for us as we were fully expecting that Nolan would probably need to go to his first day of school with a swaddle on or at the very least we were expecting a bad week or two of sleeping while trying to break him of wearing the swaddle at night. It has been so great to just lay him into his crib and night and not be cinching up a swaddling blanket that is either too big or too small!

Hanging with the cousins

We were able to get Nolan together with his 2 cousins a few weeks ago. Fun to see how much the little ones have changed in 4 months and what a character Kylar is turning into! He is a great big brother and sure loves his little cousin Nolan.

The Bumbo

As Nolan seems to be getting stronger and stronger each day Danielle thought it would be fun to get him a "Bumbo" chair. We have heard good things from other friends that have had them and thought Nolan might enjoy it.

So far he seems to enjoy it for short periods of time. The funniest thing so far was when Danielle set him in his chair looking out the window. She said he was delighted to just be sitting and looking outside like a "big boy".

A Few Rough Nights

Nolan had been zipping along these last 2 months sleeping pretty much like clockwork from 10PM until 6AM. Then out of the blue he started waking up at 3:30 or 4 AM and just screaming. He was pretty much inconsolable for about an hour before going back to sleep.

We still have him sleeping in his "burrito" roll at night but he is getting a little too strong for it. He breaks out and once his arms are free he is wide awake.

Thankfully after a couple of bad nights he seems to be back to his normal sleep routine. We thought this T-shirt summed up his life the past couple of weeks!

Dirty Little Secret: Vaccinations

Danielle and I have many friends and relatives that have small children which has been a great resource for us to ask kid questions to. One thing we were not prepared for, however, was the dreaded shots!

Here we are humming right along with a great 2 month old who eats well, sleeps well and is happy. We take him in for his shots and his world gets turned upside down! Our previously happy child turned into a fussy boy who wouldn't sleep for about 5 days.

Thankfully he has slowly returned to his normal self but we sure are not looking forward to repeating this experience multiple times in the coming months. Hopefully it will be easier the next time.

The other lowlight of our visit to the doctor other than a 75 minute wait (thanks medical establishment!) was having to hold down my son's arms while they stick him with needles in his legs. Not fun to see those big beautiful eyes looking at me as if to say "why would you do this to me?"

I'm sure this is something all families get the joy of going thru but for us it sure was a curveball we were not expecting!

Evidences of God's Wonderful Creation

Isn't it great to see some of the natural beauty that our world has to offer? There are certain times that I look at the world that God created and sit back and say "Wow". I wanted to share a couple of these "Wow" pictures that we have recently seen.

The first picture was earlier in the summer when we were driving to Brainerd. A rainstorm had just passed and we saw this amazing rainbow. I can't ever recall seeing an entire rainbow from end to end.

The 2nd picture was a sunset picture at the lake. Fortunately we get blessed with great sunsets at the lake just about every night but this one was especially beautiful.

What a great creator we serve and what an amazing creation we get to live in and enjoy!

Look at how handsome I am!

One of the new things we have found that entertains Nolan is holding him up in front of the mirror in our bathroom. He stares at himself for a few seconds and then starts to get a huge grin on his face. Sure has been fun as he starts to get more aware of his surroundings and responds with big smiles!