do you like ta' two step?

I mentioned in my last post that Johnny likes music. He likes to dance too. He laughs and laughs when we dance the old fashioned way. We dance the two step my grandpa taught me as a youngin'! John holds his arm out with mine and everything, so cute! ++ Today marked the beginning of a new sewing project: curtains for the guest room. We also rearranged the guest room and might paint some accent walls. Fun stuff!

Naps and thoughts about Crawling

John took a turn yesterday, he is changing yet again. We enjoyed the stage when we could just giggle and smile together. He got such a kick out of just being able to smile and laugh. Just yesterday he became so much more interested in discovering the world around him, reaching for things more and more. It is crazy how he changes just over night!

He is on the cusp on having just 2 naps now, something I have tried off and on. The past two days he has been so sleepy by 4:30 or 5pm, just too late for another nap. Soon he will be regulated and used to his new schedule. It is hard now, not really knowing what I am doing. Hopefully this attempt at the 2 nap schedule will work. I read the Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child book, and the sleep schedule seems so easy. Then I find myself getting down on my inability to make it work in our life. So far the morning nap is going well, just need to get the afternoon nap to be a bit later.

I took this picture of John last week, he was so cute rolling around his crib in the morning. He is funny; he still won't roll onto his belly. He stays on his side if he gets close to rolling and even sleeps on his side. When will be the day he decides he wants to be on his belly, and start crawling? I think soon. I am not too eager for the crawling stage, but also interested to see how it goes. What will it be like having him be on his own? Having the ability to essentially go any where he can go!!

Wow has life changed...blogging about naps and crawling. So weird. I love it though, it is fun being a momma.

Christmas is Here

Christmas is here..the gifts have been bought. The tree is in the living room. The Christmas lights are outside. John and I sang Christmas Carols this morning. Wait, that is a new sign that Christmas is here!

It has been such a blessing having him around, now that he smiles and giggles and can look a the bright lights! He is a lot of fun. He is also sitting up on his own for the most part.

Grace is much needed these days

Today I was able to read some in Ezra. His humility and sorrow as he cried out to the Lord was inspiring to me. He knew God had and was still sparing them tremendously, and tore his clothes at the site of folks still disobeying the Lord.



I am so thankful for God's grace with us.



With that said, I have been needing a lot of grace when it comes to life these days. It has been a challenge to figure out life with a child. John is so much fun and adorable to boot, but he sure changed my life!



Last night I made up a list of 5 cleaning tasks that pretty much need to be done each week. As of now, Hubie has been doing a lot of the cleaning (thank you!). The idea is that I do one short task each day so that everything gets done on a weekly or monthly basis (I pick one room to dust once a week and vacuum the upstairs one week and downstairs the next, etc).

And I have one catch up day for the days I don't get to the task:) That was Hubie's idea. Smart man, I think.



We have thought a lot about how to heat our house with a baby. Since we live in an older row home with vacant homes on either side of us, our house is hard to heat. In the past we just kept the heat very low. We have a game plan now, but it is still on the colder side for all of us.

I was so proud to make my own leggings for John! They help so much since pants ride up all the time and it is cold on his legs. Progressive Pioneer noted on her blog that she cut the end off of her socks to make her own. I had a couple pairs with holes in the toes, they work perfectly! Just cut off the toe end.

Before my parents came to visit two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to do some cooking. We made applesauce from the apples we picked. It turned out better this year, as I figured out I needed less water. I didn't even need sugar, it was good tasting. Perfect for baby food too; I froze some for next month when John starts to eat fruits!

I just got John down for his nap. It is taking some finagling to get him to nap these days. Ever since we decided not to rock him to sleep, he has been napping maybe 1 hr or so each day. He had been giving us trouble when we rocked him to sleep anyway, so I guess we just need to figure out his new schedule.

Hubie has been reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child to me and it has some good tips on setting up a nap schedule.
Since John is 5 months now, apprently he needs to nap every 2 1/2- 3 hrs, two to three times a day. The author recommends really tiring the kid out before naps so he will sleep for at least an hour. I tried taking John outside for a walk before each nap yesterday and today. It sort of is working...although he fell asleep eating at 11:45am, so that messed up his afternoon nap. Nonetheless, he is sleeping now!!! I am going to keep up with this plan for a week, and hopefully that will do the trick.
PS, He is also sleeping through the night as of this past week, which is wonderful!

So, I'd better go throw the diapers in the wash since I have the chance. By the way, cloth diapers have been great! I am so glad we decided to use them.

Family Time

We had some fun times in August visiting friends and family. Courtney and her family came to see us. It is so nice to have a good friend like her...it was great to see her! Her kids are growing up so much! It has been fun to see them a little more often this year.

Here is Uncle Randy and Cousin Morgan, and of course Maria the dog. Don't they look cute? They drove several hours to come and see us. It is always nice to catch up and see family.

Great Grandpa McCullough pictured here with John, his great grandson. What a neat day, John and Gramps got to meet. Gramps drove all the way up from FL and came to see us the same day he got into Indiana. Amazing!

Here is Great Grandma McCullough admiring "grandma's sugar." How beautiful to see such a big smile at little John. Babies are fun like that:).

Grandma Knox adores John, she loved on him whenever she could. I really like this picture, they both look happy.

Here is brother Ryan and Nadaly. They look like good ship captains don't they?

Don't you think they need one more kid? John looks so natural with them! Uncle Jason and Aunt Megan came over and we all had fun hanging out before we headed back to Ohio. Maci is amazing, she is such a fun little girl! We even saw her walk this trip!

johnny

Welcome John Gregory

Our little guy is here, and has been for over 2 weeks now. He was born on his due date; we were amazed!


Here is Daddy holding his little guy! Happy Father's Day :).



I am just getting to blog now, as this parenting thing is pretty overwhelming. And really, I should be sleeping, so here are a few pictures to let you know what we have been up to with John. Hopefully another day I will have time to write more.

Grandpa and Grandma Knox were here right after John was born. They were so amazing to come and help us out! They love John so much too, which is fun to see.

Granddaddy and Grandma Hostetter came to see John his first week in the world. John Gregory was named after his Granddaddy Hostetter and his Grandpa Knox.

It seems like most people think John looks like Hubie. You can judge for yourself! I thought this picture below is cute- they are making the same face.

Awwwwwwwww......aren't they cute??!!

Here is John looking at his mommy. He is such a sweetie.