Halloween

October began a season of more first holidays for our little man. First came Halloween. I bought this costume a year ago when all the costumes were on sale.  Glad it fit:)

He was on the MOOOVE!

Great Grandpa Noel & his favorite cow:)

Playing with cousin Dakota while passing out candy to Trick-or-Treaters.

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:)

Vacation

At the end of July, Zeb, James and I went on our first family vacation, just the three of us.  We took just a two day trip to Omaha.  On the first day, we walked around the Old Market for a bit and then we checked into our hotel.  We ended up staying in the rest of the evening.  We took James to the pool for his first swimming adventure and ordered in pizza.  It was a perfect evening. The next day we went to the zoo.  We spent 5 1/2 hours walking around, taking it all in.  James slept for more than half of the visit, but Mommy enjoyed every minute of it!  Here are a few pictures from our trip.

4th of July

The 4th of July is my favorite holiday.  I always look forward to the parade, fireworks, food, and time with family and friends.  I was even more excited this year because James got to experience his first 4th!  We started the day at Zeb's grandparents and watched the parade with them.  James LOVED the parade, especially the tractors.  He followed each one as it went by and when he couldn't see it any longer, he would turn back to find the next one.

Then we headed over to Jennifer and Tony's for the rest of the day.  They had a huge spread of delicious food!  Needless to say, we were all stuffed by the end of the day.  We spent the day eating, hanging out, and playing games.  James (and I) may have taken a nap in the middle of all the excitement:)  We finished the night with fireworks, which James slept through of course.  It was another successful 4th of July.

James and cousin Dakota.  They are 7 months apart.

He was too busy watching the tractors to take a picture with me:)

Aunt Zoey came home for the week!

Tummy time on the beach ball

Laughing at Daddy

Okoboji

My mom's side of the family had a reunion in Okoboji in June.  We had lots to celebrate!  My cousin Lauren graduated high school, my cousin Lindsey graduated from Iowa State, Allen and I are both finishing our masters this summer, my Aunt Heidi celebrated her 40th birthday and James joined the family.  I told you we had lots to celebrate!  It was a great weekend filled with lots of good food, family and making memories. This was also the first time James got to meet my Aunt Heidi and her family as well as my Grandpa Pete.

Zeb drove us up on a Friday night after a ball game.  We arrived in Spencer at 2:30am, but it was worth it because James slept through the whole drive up there.  We were not quite so lucky on the ride home:(

James loves the water at home, so I thought we would give the lake a try.  He did not like that idea at all.  The water was way too cold for him, but we stuck his toes in just a bit.  However, he didn't mind the boat ride or the giant life jacket that accompanied it!  I put most of the pics up on facebook, but here are a few from our weekend.