Jack, 6 months

Jack is SIX months! Want to know how we celebrated his half birthday? He got a huge up grade and an extended warranty on his life! Dr. Turrentine fixed our little boy's heart on his six month birthday, but that is a story for another post...

This is how Jack spent a portion of his sixth month birthday. For most of the day he was heavily sedated... We knew that taking pictures on the actual day wasn't going to be the greatest, so we took some the night before his surgery (it was practically almost his monthly birthday). We decided to take them shirtless because that was the last day he won't have a scar on his chest. His eyes are pretty tired because we had a very long traumatic day of pre-op, but he still managed to pull out some award winning smiles. p.s. sorry some of them aren't oriented correctly. My top priority right now isn't taking time to load pictures and spend time flipping/cropping/eliminating red eye, but Jack is sleeping now so I thought I would do a quick post.

This is Jack early, early Thursday morning before heading to the hospital.

Some fun things about Jack this month... first and foremost, his heartbeat no longer sounds like a washing machine.

He thinks he doesn't know how to crawl, but he does. We have a video monitor and we watch him crawl in his crib. He ONLY does it in his crib. Silly boy...

His favorite book is "Are you my Mother?". I read it to him in this really annoying high pitched nasally voice. I realize it's annoying, heck I even get on my own nerves reading it like that, but Jack LOVES it, so I keep doing it. It even got him smiling today in the intensive care unit. I don't care who I bug, when he smiles it melts all my worries...

His favorite toy is a tie between his bumble bee that vibrates and this box with different activities on each side (similar to what dentists usually have in the waiting room). He likes to turn the cogs and wheels with his feet.

Jack is eating solids. So far he has had rice cereal, stage one peas, and stage one carrots. We tried to hold off on solids until after his surgery, but he was so dang interested every time he saw one of us eating that we couldn't put it off any longer. He loves his solids.

Jack is fascinated with my dad. Since my parents got to spend a few days with us before Jack's surgery he really got to bond with his grandpa. When my dad is in the room it is hard for Jack to look away. It's really quite darling.

Jack is starting to reach for people he wants. This is also something that will melt your heart.

Jack LOVES the camera. As soon as he sees one he whips out a gummy little grin. I don't know how he knows you are supposed to do this... I guess he is just a natural.

Darn we love this little guy. I can't believe we have already had him for six months, and yet it's hard to remember what life was life before he joined our family. He fills us with such joy.

1L of a Ride

Well, we did it! After a year's worth of twelve hour days, law papers, Gordy practically living in his carol at the library, and TWO finals weeks we can finally say that we made it through Gordy's first year of law school... and you can definitely say that it was 1L of a ride! The 1L year is the most dreaded of all three years (or so they say). This is such a major accomplishment for Gordy and we are so proud of him. I can hardly believe that we have already made it through 1/3 of our time here in Bloomington. I feel like we are going to blink and law school is going to be over...

To celebrate finals being over we decided to have a little outing with the Castellano clan. We went over to campus (because I don't think that the guys had enough on campus time yet) and we took pics of each other's families. We went to Dunn woods, a little forest in the center of IU campus to take pictures. I was so happy that we picked this location. Heather did a great job snapping away and Dan did a great job too, getting Jack to smile in all of the pictures. I would also like to give props to Jack for being particularly cute and waiting until we were in the car leaving to have a melt down. Seriously, the stars aligned for us to get some great shots.

So without further ado.... Here are some of our favs

In other news, my parents made it in early this morning (4:30 AM) and Gordy's parents are arriving on Tuesday. It is so nice of our parent's to come help and support us while Jack has his surgery next week. We love them for sacrificing to come out here to Indiana and make sure we are taken care of. We definitely have the best parents in the entire world.

Next Thursday is THE big day! Little man is getting his heart fixed up! I think we are just going to be holding our breath until Friday. We have great faith that all will be well with him, but we are still sad that our sweet little guy will have to go through such a big ordeal he doesn't understand. It is all for the best though, that's what we keep reminding ourselves.

Easter

I can't believe that Gordy is DONE with his first year of law school classes! He has really been such a trooper. As if law school isn't stressful enough, he has more than successfully balanced transitioning into his new role as a dad and has some how managed to keep his sometimes needy wife happy. Jack and I love him and are so proud of all he has accomplished this year.

Now it's on to the most dreaded part of the semester.... finals. Yuck.

Gordy has his first final this Wednesday.

Easter was yesterday. It is so nice to have a specific time set aside to celebrate the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am still so amazed that such a tremendous sacrifice was made on my behalf.

Easter is usually a Sunday where every one dresses extra special (i.e. Easter dresses for little girls), and I thought "Why can't little boys look special on Easter?". I really wanted to dress Jack up on Sunday, but we are poor law students who's budget doesn't necessarily have room for extras like new baby outfits just because mom wants to put him in something new. So I got my craft blogging on and decided that I was capable of making something cute for Jack.

I pulled out an old pair of my slacks and some scrap fabric and got to work. I started out only making a vest on his onesie, but then I found another tutorial for the bow-tie, and then another one for a hat, and then I decided he needed pants, so I just made a pattern for those... and this is how it turned out...

Pretty cute right!?

After making Jack's outfit I was feeling really confident in my beginner sewing capabilities so I decided to make Gordy a tie to match Jack's bow-tie. THEN I realized I didn't want to be the only one not matching, so I made a rosette bib necklace that I could wear. Usually I'm not into the whole matchy-matchy thing, but as you can tell, I got really carried away. The best part is that I made all of these cute things and I didn't spend a penny!

I'm now living proof that you don't actually have to know how to do anything these days.

Just go online and find a tutorial.

After church we came home and got ready for our Easter dinner. Jack got a new treat.

He's been reaching for our food and our drinks while smacking his lips for a couple of weeks now, so we decided that it was time to introduce him to a culinary masterpiece: rice cereal.

He loved every last bite of it...

... and we couldn't shovel it in his mouth fast enough...

... and he was attacking the bowl with his mouth...

.... so he finished the bowl off like this, drinking it like he couldn't possibly have anything more delicious ever in his entire life. We were really pleased that he liked it so much.

Gordy made an appetizer for us, because it's not really easter unless you have a deviled egg. These were delicious! Gordy did a great job.

I seriously have never had such a delicious deviled egg.

I also made my first ever ham, and it turned out pretty good.

Sadly, we did not take a picture of it because we were ready to eat by three o'clock.

It had an orange zest and juice, dijon mustard, and brown sugar glaze.

Thank you Food Network Magazine.

Then we had the Castellano's, the Rickey's, and the Leavitt's over for Easter dinner. It was so fun to have company over. If you can't be with your family on the holidays, it's so nice to have good friends as stand ins.

Everyone squished into our tiny dining room.

Jack, Five Months

Jack is five months old today. If you're wondering what Jack is up to these days...

Jack does not like being on his back.

He doesn't like to sleep on his back or play on his back.

If you try to put him on his back, 9/10 times he will roll immediately over.

Jack makes friends everywhere we go. Old men at the grocery store, students at the law school, farmer's market vendors, nurses and doctors, all want to stop to talk to him.

Last week, the maintenance crew at our apartment spotted us laying in the grass from across the field and they walked all the way over to come check on Jack.

He loves the attention.

Jack prefers standing (while holding onto your hands) over laying down.

When we put him in his Johnny Jump Up he gets such a thrill when he realizes that he is moving himself around.

He gets the shakes and gets very grabby every time he sees us drinking a glass of water.

I guess he is like his mom, he must love water too.

This is the thing he reaches for the most.

Now we have to be careful that he doesn't pull our plates and cups off the table when we are eating.

He learned from watching his friend Ethan how to sit up on his own.

He can do it by himself for a few seconds, and sometimes a few minutes.

Jack is teething. His bottom, right canine tooth is just about to pop through.

I can also see his front two bottom teeth under the surface, but I still think those might be a while.

He still likes to go to sleep snuggling his yellow giraffe.

Most of the time he puts himself to sleep.

He is starting to love back rubs when we are putting him down.

He is completely obsessed with Gordy.

His favorite toys are my lips, my hands, his hands, and his feet. ESPECIALLY his feet.

I've caught him on multiple occasions yelling at his feet because they are just a hair away from being in his mouth, which is where he wants to put everything these days.

He loves when we read to him. He concentrates so hard on the pictures.

He loves to ride in the front carrier and look around when we go to the store or go on walks. He prefers this over riding in the stroller, and since he is still barely over 13lbs I don't mind carrying him.

I often find him studying objects, trying to figure out what it is or how it works.

I think he might be an engineer one day...

He does not like to lean back in his bouncy seat or in his car seat.

He constantly tries to lean forward and look out around him.

This has been a really fun month with Jack. He took his first plane ride to Utah to visit family and friends and he did so great on all of the legs of the trip. He also learned how to put himself to sleep (much to our satisfaction). He is such a sweet baby.

On this day next month he will be having his surgery.

We are so anxious to have his heart all fixed-up.

Spring is Finally Here

Spring is finally here, which means lots of rain, but also some beautiful weather. We've been enjoying a lot of outdoors time this week. Jack and I have gone on some great walks on the hiking trail behind our apartment complex, a few jogs, we've laid in our backyard on a blanket in the grass, we've had back porch chats with our friends in the evening, and we've even walked to the church to watch Gordy play Ultimate Frisbee. BUT my all time favorite out door activity this week was our Sunday afternoon walk.

We started the walk off by going turtle watching. The turtles in the ponds behind our apartment complex are massive. Seriously they are like sea monster sized turtles. It was fun to watch them swim and pop their heads up in the water. We decided to take a different route on our walk and ended up in a dream... We found this neighborhood where all of the streets are lined with these gorgeous trees. A man who lives there told me they were pear trees, but I'm not sure if I believe him. Heaven. It was just heaven. There was a slight cool breeze, it was a warm afternoon, and the aroma of the blooms was bliss. Plus we were together as a family on our walk, so that made it absolute perfection.

Spring time is making me fall in love with Bloomington all over again. Gordy put it best when he said, "Jenn's soul craves this weather."

You know what else comes with Spring? Only the happiest place on earth, Farmer's Market. We took Jack to have his first market experience. It was a rainy day, so we only stayed for a few minutes. The fact that Jack protested to being shielded from the rain and other shoppers and vendors stopped us several times to talk to Jack only made the experience that much more memorable. It is really getting difficult to go any where with him these days. He wants to make friends with everyone we come in contact with, and in order to be polite I have sit there and make small talk with everyone who wants to comment on his big smile, or blue eyes... and he just loves the attention.

Good news, Jack got his last RSV shot of the season! YAY! I really hated taking him to get those every 28 days...

Something new this week, Jack learned how to sit up on his own by watching his buddy Ethan. He's working on sitting up for a few minutes at a time by himself. This is very exciting for us...

Something that is not so exciting, Jack is teething. At first I wasn't sure because he wasn't acting any different. Now I know he is. Not only because he is acting grumpy, but because I can feel them coming through. It feels like he has several that are about to come up, but I think the first one to cut will be his bottom left canine tooth. This is a bittersweet moment. It's good because he's growing up, but sad because his gummy little smile is so sweet...

General Conference Week

Gordy has been hitting the books extra, extra hard this week. He's been putting in a lot of library time to get ready for finals coming up in about a month. He's also been doing a lot of work on group projects and his big Legal Research and Writing paper. This means that I have had lots of extra (by myself) time to do things like make homemade strawberry jam. It was my first time ever doing it and it was a lot easier than I expected, except Heather and I had to stop frequently to take care of Jack and Ethan.

We've had crazy weather this week. There has been snow, rain, hail, and sunshine. It's been super cold and dreary then yesterday it warmed up. Hopefully the weather stays nice from here on out... This is is the hail storm.

I also got a new jogging stroller which I am so super excited about. It's totally awesome! It has an odometer so I can tell how far I've run and the time it takes me to run my route. It also has a speaker that I can plug my ipod into. Now Jack and I can both listen to some tunes when we are out and about. I mean seriously, what will they think of next?

I had to bundle the little guy up for our run. I think he was nice and cozy because about 5 minutes into it he was snoozing.

Jack in his new ride...

This weekend was also General Conference, which means sticky bun Sunday. Gordy's specialty is sticky buns which he makes every Sunday morning of General Conference. We enjoy them so much, but they are even better shared with friends. We had the Leavitts, the Rickeys, and the Castellanos over for a conference brunch. Everyone brought a little something to share, and man oh man was it delicious!

This is the aftermath.

Conference was so wonderful. We really felt the spirit over the last couple of days. We consider ourselves so blessed to be able to hear council directly from the Lord's prophet. It felt wonderful to be uplifted and edified. We noticed a theme of strengthening marriages throughout the conference and hope to make our marriage even better by abiding by the council we received this weekend.

After the Sunday morning session was over, we took a walk around our apartment grounds with Erin and Mitchell. The weather was so beautiful out that we decided to go to the pond and explore the hiking trail.

We found a dam on the little trail and Gordy and Mitchell came up with

some pretty funny poses.

It does my soul so much good to get a little sunshine.

In other news, Jack FINALLY pooped. Last week we gave him his first bottle of formula and he didn't poop for ELEVEN DAYS! After many a call to the pediatrician's office and failed attempts at using apple juice as a laxative, we finally tried a suppository. It took two days of that to get the results we were looking for, but it finally worked. Being a parent is a funny thing; you worry if your kid poops too much or not enough or if its the wrong color or consistency... Jack is teaching us so much about how to be better people by caring for him. I'm just glad that whole ordeal is over with.After all, he's such a sweet little fella.