7 Months Old

Matthew turned 7 months old last Friday, July 24 and Ryan and I still can't believe how fast the time is flying. We love watching Matthew grow right before our eyes and he looks more and more like a "little boy" every day. We've had a fun month and since I haven't made any posts recently, I'll do my best to recap what's been going on with our family....

Matthew had his 6 month babywell check-up at the end of June and is a "healthy boy" weighing in at 21 lbs. 4 oz.! He's almost tripled his weight in 6 months since he was 7 lbs. 4 oz. when he was born. It's a miracle that he can grow like that from just breastfeeding...God truly is amazing! We had to buy a new car seat for Matthew because his "baby" seat only goes to 22 lbs. (which we thought would last us at least a year when we purchased it!). At least we'll have a baby car seat ready when we decide to have baby #2. So, Matthew has officially advanced to a toddler car seat.

Aunt Sissy (aka: my sister, Anna) came for a week to visit at the beginning of July and we had a wonderful time! She was a huge help by cooking dinner every night and playing with Matthew so Ryan and I could get some extra sleep. It was such a blessing to have some quality time with my sister. It's tough to live so far away so every little bit of time we get with family is important and needed. Here are a few of my favorite photos from Aunt Sissy's visit.

Snuggling on the couch before bedtime...

Playing with hats during our shopping trip to the outlets...

Watching the airplanes fly over the house...

We're also enjoying trying new foods with Matthew. I've uploaded Matthew's 1st Taste of Peas video and here is the link to watch it (it was too big to post on the blog) --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siXv0NGEeNk Since his first hilarious taste of peas, he now seems to really enjoy eating peas and other fruits and vegetables. He's a good eater and so far has tried peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, prunes, apples, and pears.

Matthew's latest tricks include: roaring like a dinosaur (I'll be sure to post a video for you to hear - it's too funny!), giggling, playing and rolling all over the floor, looking at and eating his books, sitting up, and he just started babbling "ma-ma-ma-ma" - I love it! We're working on "da-da" but haven't mastered that sound just yet.

Enjoy the video of Matthew eating his peas. Here are a few more photos of our family from July. Hope you enjoy!

July 4th Holiday weekend

Ryan, Matthew and I enjoyed a nice relaxing (and uneventful) July 4th weekend. It was great to have some quiet time as a family and to spend quality time together playing with Matthew. He's changing so much each day, that it's hard to capture all of his new "tricks" on camera.

His tricks lately have consisted of: sitting up on his own, transferring toys from one hand to the other and banging them on anything he can to make noise, playing with his beach balls that Poppy (my Dad) brought to him in during their visit in May, making lots of new sounds and squealing and yelling as he plays (he definitely has my loud voice!). He's rolling all over the place and is starting to push up his torso with his arms, so he may be on his way to crawling within the next few months.

We started solid foods about a month ago. He first ate rice cereal and had no problems. After the doctor cleared us to start other foods, we decided to begin with peas! I got it all on video, but it's not downloading to the blog since it's a large file so I'm working on ways to share it with everyone. It's priceless -- Matthew's facial expressions when he tried the peas for the first time were hilarious! He kept opening his mouth for more, so I kept giving it to him and he would pucker his face and even gag a little but he managed to swallow every bite and never spit it back out. Now that he's been eating them for about a week, he has actually grown to enjoy peas. Next food....carrots!

I've posted a few pictures below from our July 4th holiday. Grandma (Ryan's Mom) sent him a cute outfit that was perfect for the occasion. Ryan and Matthew even sat down and read the "Declaration of Independence" -- We're proud to be American's and so proud of Ryan's service in our military! Thank you to all the military families out there that sacrifice for our country's freedom!

Splish Splash

Matthew loves taking baths. We're still using the baby tub that sits in the sink (although we're realizing that we're going to have to graduate to the larger tub soon...). Ever since Matthew was born, he has loved bath time. Here's a little video to prove it...enjoy!