Happy 4 months, Josiah!

This is the first true monthly comparison we can make with Sarah, since this is when we started blogging her progress. You can read her 4 month update here. August has been a really fun month for our family. We have gotten out a lot in an effort to soak up summer and Josiah has been such a trooper. He is such a delight and truly a blessing to our family in so many ways. How do I count the ways? Here is our best shot:

Way 1: His smiles and giggles warm the heart. Bonus, they are a great conversation starter with strangers and acquaintances, as well as friends.
Way 2: Sarah loves to love on him. She needs more opportunity to learn to share- both things and attention. Josiah is already so good for her.
Way 3: Dave and I get to lean on each other in the tired, trying times of trying to figure our sweet boy out.
Way 4: He is just so flippy, flirty, and fun to be around! During his wake times he is pure happiness.

Weight: 19lbs 1oz (98%)
Length: 27.25in (98%)
Head: 16.35 (56%)
Diaper: size 3
Clothing: 6 month- the length is where he is especially big, and many of his 6 month clothes are tight through the length. I just did a big rearrange (Dave is grateful!) so that everything fits. It is all 6-12 month items.
Likes: jumping, being tickled, being looked at/noticed, stretching out, smiling big smiles, tummy time, concentrating hard on and then grabbing toys, bigger kids playing with him (sometimes it looks like torture, but he loves it!), kisses
Dislikes: he is easily startled, light in his eyes, crib/going to sleep- wish we knew which it was!

Schedule: We are doing great with a 4 hour schedule. He often wakes up in the 6 o'clock hour, but kind of evens everything out throughout the rest of the day. I steal his naps so often for grocery trips, play dates, or beach time with Dave that it seems like there is rarely a normal day. And if there is, he is used to being disturbed, so sometimes wakes up anyway. We have decided that it is worth it these last days of summer though. Next week we are back to our normal routine.

7 am: Wake and nurse (Sarah likes to sing "Siah, Siah, wake up time, wake up time!")
7-8 am: Wake time
8-11am: Nap
11am: Wake and nurse
11-12 pm: Wake time
12-3 pm: Nap
3 pm: Wake and nurse
3-4:30 pm: Wake time
4:30-5:30 pm: Nap
5:30-7 pm; Wake time (found he needs this bit of wake time to go down at 7pm)
7 pm: Wake and nurse and back to bed not much later
9:30 pm: Dream feed and right back to bed

Sleep: Josiah sleeps like a champ. But falling asleep, not so much. It seems like we have tried everything to help him settle easier. The funny(ish...) thing is that he wouldn't really let us rock him to sleep if we wanted to. When we are on the go he will drop off when he gets tired. He will also fall asleep when our friend Kim puts him down, even if he is awake. He definitely doesn't like that we are leaving him alone. But he is ok with it if we put him in his car seat for a nap. We pray about it often and are so thankful that once he falls asleep, he does sleep really well. We are also thankful that he was big enough and willing to move to a 4 hour schedule so early, so we are putting him down and hearing him upset fewer times a day. When we have been at home and he is better rested, he goes to sleep more easily. He is not swaddled now, but we still do the dream feed. He prefers sleeping on his side.

Fun things: He started rolling last Thursday, August 30, while I was bathing Sarah just after Dave left for practice. He has continued to do it since then, only back to tummy thus far.  His hair is still short and fuzzy, and looks light. His eyes are the most handsome blue. Sarah never really interacted with a lovie at his age, but he sometimes likes to hold onto something soft while he is considering going to sleep. Maybe it just makes me feel like he is less lonely :) (We lost it at the mall last weekend. He, of course, wasn't concerned, but it turns out that I was really attached to his monkey! Thankfully, it turned up in the Macy's lost in found. We go there because it has the best "powder room" for nursing :) ) We have left him with a sitter twice at this point. Our neighbors watched the kids so we could go out one night a few weeks ago and this weekend a family at church took them and Dave and I went to a movie. They say he does fine. He is also going to nursery now and usually sleeps the whole time in the swing. It is so nice to be able to concentrate in church again!

Today's appointment: Josiah got several shots and took them like a champ. He chugged the oral vaccine- he was a super hungry boy! Dave was off so we took Sarah along. She was really nervous...and it turns out with good reason. They ended up going ahead and giving her a flu shot. Usually this is really traumatic. She went first and cried, but then when Josiah cried, she asked to go back in and give him a hug. He needed a snuggle, she said. Josiah, you are loved :)

Next appointment: November 5, 10:20am

Does looking at this make you feel relaxed?

He liked his first boat trip!

Toes!

To the top!

He loves his tummy time.

Before we dropped the swaddle...maybe that dramatic hand will have a future in theater :)

Handsome fellas

Reading "Daddy's book." Sarah loves to read the photo book Dave made of our first year of marriage.

Josiah missed out on the ice cream.

I just love a sleeping baby.

Sarah really wanted to hold his hand.

"Heart breaker." The girls who watched the kids for us had lots of sticker fun.

Sarah is the best entertainment a little boy could ask for!

I love to watch them play together!

Enjoying guitar time with Daddy.

Let the good times ROLL!

In honor of his 4 month mark, we have some video to share with you! (We will post an official 4 month update after his appointment on Friday.) Josiah started rolling last week and we are all enjoying his new trick. He has been showing signs of rolling for weeks and often likes to sleep on his side. Sometimes I would watch him fall asleep just to make sure I didn't miss that first roll! Ultimately, he did it last Thursday night, August 30, just after Dave left for worship team practice. You'll hear Sarah in the background. She was so sweet cheering him on from the bath tub.

Below you will find:

1. First roll
2. Second roll attempt
3. Second roll

Let it be known that he was super hungry...I fed him as soon as Sarah was dry and diapered!

Garden Update

I promise our summer is more exciting than garden updates, but the garden does show fun, significant change. And we enjoy looking back on the pictures. So here is where we were as of last week!

If you look really closely, you'll see that the bottom half of many of the plants are dying. We deduced, with the help of a few tomato experts, that we had a fungus on our hands. (It just seems cruel that the word "fun" is in fungus!) Dave found a fungicide and we had to wait a week before harvesting again. Hopefully the rest of our tomatoes will still ripen nicely!

Not sure you can see them, but the abundance of cherry tomatoes have been so much fun. Sarah loves to pick these and prefers to eat them before we get inside. Since they seem to be rather perfectly throat size, she has learned that she has to share with Daddy. He eats half of it for safety, as well as to eliminate the juicy pop. Sarah found that scary!

The watermelon vine likes this spot. Baby blueberry bush is on the right.

Hi, baby watermelon!

I picked a ton of parsley this week...and you can't even tell that I touched the plant. So. Much. Parsley. Our parsley meal of the week was tabbouleh.

We are trying a new freezing method- the "parsley log." In theory, this is now a dense, frozen hunk of parsley from which we can slice as needed. Well see how it works!