Matthew had a long day today. We were gone about 12 hours today and the poor little man didn't get enough naps (only 2 naps about about 1/2 hour each-when normally he takes 1 1/2 hours- 2 hour naps about 2 or 3 times a day). At our last party tonight- he got really upset because he was so very tired and cried hard for almost an hour to hour and a half. When we put him the car carrier to come home he was sleeping before we even had our coats and shoes on. He slept only about 1/2 to 45 minutes. He woke up, we changed him, and feed him and he was sleeping before he even finished his bottle. He was sleeping hard because he was snoring. I just don't understand why babies fight sleep so much.

Matthew must be going through a growth spurt because he wants to eat all the time. We are lucky if he makes it 3 hours. We even put cereal in his bottles. He also goes in spurt with the spit up. One feeding he might spit up a small amount and then the next he spits up LOTS. We tried peaches tonight. It was definitely a different taste then bananas and we're not sure if he likes them. Every bite he made a sour face.

Last week as you recall Matthew was really grumpy a few days but now this week he is a totally different kid. He has been in such a good mood. I think that last week he was not feeling good. Scott got sick on Saturday night and we think that Matthew possible had a touch of it during the week.

Discovering Toes

Matthew discovered his toes today before his bath and of course they went right into the mouth and then he didn't want to stop chewing on them. I had to quickly wash and rinse before he realized it. He just cracks me up! The Crazy Boy!

Adventures of Feeding Time

Tonight while Scott was feeding Matthew, he grabbed onto the spoon with a death grip and would not let go. I guess he didn't think Scott was feeding him fast enough. Scott and I were laughing so hard and of course between Scott and Matthew, they had cereal everywhere.
Matthew had cereal all over his hands and right away he went for the slippers on the feet.

Scott decided to bring the Jumperoo upstairs and see if Matthew would like it. We did try the jumper over the door frame but the only door we could use it on was the bathroom door and it was annoying there. As you can see by the pictures, Matthew loved the Jumperoo. It only took me showing him one time how to get the music started before he could do it. He is so smart.

Sleeping Baby

Late afternoon yesterday Matthew was fighting sleep so we put him into his swing. He always wants to hold his blanket so I gave him his bear with small blanket attached to it. He held it in his fingers and it smoothed him and as you can see it didn't take long for him to fall asleep.

Matthew & Adie

On Friday, we took Matthew's birthmom, Adie, out to dinner to celebrate her birthday. Matthew was just hamming it up and Adie enjoyed every minute. And of course, he had to break her in to and spit up all over her. Sorry about that Adie :( He does that to everyone! We had lots of fun!

Matthew holds his bottle by himself. It all started when he started playing with his bottle. If he is not very hungry he will pull the bottle in and out of his mouth. So now that he holds it he gets really mad when you take it away to burp him! What a crazy boy he is!

Yesterday was a really tough day! Matthew was really grumpy yesterday! He cried a lot and I could not figure out what was wrong. He usually takes a nap around 2 pm but yesterday he started crying and cried for almost 45 minutes. I finally had to put him on the floor and walk into the other room to take a phone call because I could not hear the caller. While he was on the floor he stopped crying but then got fussy again so I put him in his swing and he finally fell asleep for about half hour. I think that he was just really tired because he slept really good last night.

Matthew is quite the flirt with the girls already. Tonight while we were at the visitation for Scott's Uncle, Lee, who passed away on Friday, January 16, Matthew was just a squealing at two of his cousins, who are 3 and 1 1/2 years old. Scott and I couldn't believe how excited he was getting. We had never heard him so excited before. What surprised us the most is that he didn't even get the hiccups. And of course, Matthew had to break in the funeral home right by puking on the floor a couple of times.

Scott's uncle Lee was a kind man who always had a story to tell. And even at 78 years old he still flirted with his wife. He was a man of wisdom as well and could fix or help you fix anything. He will be geatly missed!

Our switch to soy formula has not helped with the spit up to much but it has helped with his pooping. With all other formulas, he only pooped every 3 to 4 days. Now it is almost every day. We have come to the conclusion that he is just going to spit up so we are going to be doing laundry once a day until he grows out of the spit up stage. When he spits up, he never gets grumpy. Normally he is smiling the whole time we are trying to clean him and everything else up.

Matthew loves talking and playing with his feet. This top video was taken before bath time.

The bottom video was taken after the bath. He is just a happy go lucky boy! Enjoy!!!!!!!!

It amazes me how much Matthew learns in just one day. He has discovered his feet. He has not tried to chew on them yet but he loves to lift both legs up and then drop them. When he does this in the bassinet, it is really loud and it just makes us laugh. When he is on his play mat, he will pick up him feet and drop them and he moves all other his mat.

He has been doing better with sleeping since we started him on cereal at night. If he goes to sleep around 9p.m., we can usually get him to sleep until 4:45a.m. (Those are my nights that he sleeps until 4:45a.m. but when it is Scott's nights, he usually wakes up at 3a.m.). Thursday morning, he decided he wanted to get up at 4a.m. (my night). He started kicking his feet and then he let out a loud squeal. We both were very surprised because he almost always wakes up grumpy and crying and is that way until you put him on his changing table. I did try to put him in bed with us to see if we could get a few more minutes of sleep but NO WAY, Matthew wanted to get up. I don't know why last night but Matthew was up at 1:30a.m. I got up and fed him and he didn't want to go back to sleep. We reclined on the couch and ended up falling asleep.

Matthew and his cousin Emma hanging out on a very COLD day!

Bath Time with Cousin Emma

Matthew LOVES bath time. It doesn't matter who takes a bath with him or if you give him a bath by himself-he loves them. Whenever our niece, Emma, stays overnight she loves to take a bath in "auntie's" bathtub (it's a small whirlpool tub with a couple of jets in our master bath). Saturday night when she stayed I bribed her to eat all her supper with a bath in "auntie's" tub and if she was really good we would have Matthew join us. We had a great time!
Remembering back to before Matthew was born-Emma was pretty excited that she was getting a new cousin. When we found out that we were going to be parents we didn't know how to tell everyone so on our annual camping trip we let Emma tell everyone that she was getting a new cousin. After we set up our tent, we were in the tent talking and getting our beds ready and we were talking to Emma about her new cousin and asked if she wanted to tell everyone that she was getting a new cousin. So it was her little secret until dinner that night. During dinner I had her come over to me and I held her up and I told her to tell everyone her secret. She had to say it four times before we got everyone's attention. It was really exciting and everyone was really excited for us. During one of our days camping, Scott and I had to leave to go to an ultrasound and when we got done we asked Matthew's birthmother if she would like to meet Scott's family so she came to the campground with us. After we introduced her to the family, Emma came over to us and asked birthmom if she had a baby in her tummy. Birthmom said Yes and we all laughed.

Then the Sunday before Matthew was born, Emma was in the front of our church during the children's sermon and she kept saying "I'm getting a new cousin." Then our pastor said, "And God's grace will be with your new cousin too." The whole congregation just laughed. I think that she had an intuition that her new cousin was coming sooner that we all knew.

Cereal Time

The first night trying cereal was a disaster. We waited a few minutes to long so he was hungry and wanted to eat NOW! He was crying to hard to even try cereal so we just put it in his bottle. He didn't even seem to notice. The second time that we tried, we made sure we tried before he got hungry. At first, he didn't know what to think as you can see by the first picture. By the last picture you can see that he was enjoying his cereal but we made a total mess. I guess it will get better with time. I have noticed since we started cereal that different times during the day, he will just start chewing like he is practicing eating his cereal.

We did switch to the soy formula and his spit up has gotten a little tiny bit better but it has only been a couple of days. The thing that I have noticed most is that he spits up during feeding time or shortly after instead of an hour to 2 hours after.

Potato Time

This is Matthew's first taste of potatoes. What a Hoot!!!!

Matthew had his 4 month check up today. He weighs 13 lbs 3 oz and is 23 3/4" long. He is in the 10th percentile for both height and weight (but that is compared to babies who are full term-remember that Matthew was 3 weeks early). He also had to have 3 shots today too. It is so miserable for me to hear him cry so hard when he gets his shots. I wanted to cry for other babies today too who must have been getting shots too.

The doctor also told us that we can start feeding him cereal. We can then add fruits and vegetables after a few weeks. He says that the cereal might help with the spit up. We also asked if we could try soy formula to see if that helps with the spit up. He said that he didn't think that it would help but he would not be opposed to us trying that if we wanted to. We may try to see if that can maybe help with the spit up. With the Similac Sensitive RS, Matthew did pretty good the first few weeks but then it went back to where he was spitting up a lot again.

4 Months Old Today

Matthew is 4 months old today! It sure has gone by really fast. It seems like he learns something new every day. He loves to be sung to and he loves when we're on the floor with him playing. He can almost sit up by himself but he always wants to fall forward. He got a boppy pillow for Christmas and we use that for support for sitting.

Mommy & Matthew!

More Matthew produced bubbles!

Daddy splashing water on him to keep him warm while Matthew blows his own bubbles!

He loves his bath time especially with Daddy!

1st time in jumper! He mostly turns in circles instead of jumping.

Our super smiley happy baby!!!!

Ah-Choo!!!!!!!!!!!!! God Bless You!

First Nap in the crib! He only slept 1/2 hour. He slept about 1/2 hour to 40 minutes in the crib today, but first I let him sleep on my chest for 1/2 hour.

Hope everyone enjoys Matthew's pictures.

We are sure proud parents and love to take lots of pictures. I just wish that I could scrapbook more to keep caught up on all the pictures that we are taking. Last weekend I spent time organizing all the pictures. We actually had to buy an external hard drive to hold all the pictures because it was slowing our computer down so much. I think that I have already used about 40 GB of the hard drive (it is 1 TB (terrabyte), which is equal to 1,000GB) so I can take lots more pictures. HaHaHa!

Matthew has been sleeping in his bassinet since he came home from the hospital or sleeping on our chests! Well yesterday I decided that Matthew has to get used to sleeping in his crib so it is not a big shock when he outgrows the bassinet. I decided that naptimes during the day would be a great time to try the crib. Yesterday did not go well. The first time he only slept 1/2 hour. The second time it was maybe 1/2 hour. So needless to say, he was a grumpy baby yesterday afternoon. Any ideas anyone??????????? He was in a better mood when Scott got home because he took a little catnap while I was holding him. During dinner last night, he was in his bouncy chair that has toys hanging above with velcro and he was pulling so hard that he ripped it right off the velcro. It sure surprised him a little bit.

More Pictures

Bath Time

Our cat, Sophie, decided to check out Matthew's bath tub today! The crazy cat likes to drink out of anything but her water dish. (Her favorite is the fish tank!) This is the closest she has been to Matthew when he is awake.

Daddy making Matthew Laugh

Scott and Matthew were laying on the floor and Scott was tickling Matthew. Whenever Matthew gets excited he always gets the hiccups! This is the first time that he has started giggling!

1st Time Rolling Over

Matthew rolled over for the first time tonight! I was so excited that I scared Scott half to death. He was working in the garage and I busted through the door and starting yelling HE ROLLED OVER!

Happy New Year!!!!!

Happy New Year everyone! We hope everyone has a wonderful 2009!

PS Grandma G. I love my new jammies. Don't I look so cute in my hat too.