Sitting up and crawling

I know that people always say babies grow up too fast. I say it as well and I believe it, but I am also loving all of the new stages James goes through. It is the most amazing thing to see him develop into a little person. Right now his two big things are sitting up on his own for an extended period of time and attempting to crawl. Every day he sits up longer and longer. He does really well if he has a toy or his paci to focus on. When he is laying on the floor, he is often looking for the next item he can get to. He does a mixture of army crawling and rolling to get to where he wants to. Here are a few pics of him sitting up.

Reading a book and smiling at mommy. 

Pulling apart a leaf outside (and trying to put it in his mouth)

His two favorite things: his paci and being naked:)

Aunt Zoey and Uncle Casey

The last weekend of September we were privileged to be a part of Zoey and Casey's wedding. James as the ring bearer. He was pulled down the isle in a wagon by Zeb's cousin Eliza. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of him being pulled down, but we did get a good one of him in his little suit. I loved the suit, but he looked so grown up in it! I didn't like that part;) 

This is one of my all-time favorite pics of James and me:) 

Ferberizing

On Thursday, October 3rd we decided to put James down without rocking him to sleep and without his pacifier. We had heard about "ferberizing" and "sleep training," but Zeb suggesting reading the book to find out what it was all about.  Zeb and I both read the chapters about it in Dr. Ferber's book. We learned how to do it, why to do it, and the psychology behind the way it is done. I think this really made all the difference when I came to listening to him cry. I understood what we where doing, why we were doing and I knew there was an end in sight. 

We decided to start on Thursday because he had not taken his evening nap, so we decided it was tired enough to hopefully make it go smoother. I was anticipating that the crying would last at least an hour, if not more, the first night. We were incredibly lucky because he it didn't take nearly that long. The wait times for the first night were 3 min, 5 min and 10 minutes for all subsequent waits. We put him down at 7:50pm, and we went in at 3 min and 5 min. I set my watch for 10 minutes, but he fell before we it went off. He was asleep at 8:00. 10 minutes!!! Nothing like what I expected!! We did it again the next night and the times were 5, 10 and 12. I only had to go in one time!!! He was doing so well at night that I began to fear naps would be the difficult time. I was wrong again and I'm completely okay with that:). He didn't cry for more than 10 minutes each time:) That night wasn't as good because we were in town and he fell asleep in the car, but it was still only about 30 minutes. 

I miss snuggling with him at night, but now I look forward to the snuggles when he wakes up. Those are good ones too:) Also, I'm excited to be starting a routine with him at night. I know it will benefit us all in the long run.  

In other news, I downloaded a blogger app on my phone so hopefully I'll actually be able to keep this updated:)