Will's First Christmas

Mommy and me at the Christmas tree farm.Hey Santa, is this thing real?
Mommy and Daddy are trying to get a cute picture for the Christmas card.
They found their cute picture for the Christmas card.
This is my first roadtrip. We're going to NC for Christmas!!! I hope Santa can find me.

First we stopped to see "Uncle" Ricky.
Then we went to see Great Grandmom Harper. She hasn't seen me since I was born.
I got to meet Great Uncle Jim for the first time.
And then we went to Mammaw's. We had a lots of fun at the Christmas Eve Celebration.
We got to open presents.

I don't need your help mom. I can do it by myself.It's Christmas morning and Dad won't let me get up to see if Santa came.
I'm ready!!
Look what I got! Thanks Mammaw and Pappaw.
It's my very own computer.

All of this present unwrapping is wearing me out.
Ok, I've had some breakfast, a nap, and now I'm ready for more presents. Off to Grams and Gramps.
Merry Christmas Gramps.

Santa found me at Grandma and Granddaddy Stricklands too.
This is from GG. I love it.
Granddaddy, you sure know how to spoil me.
Grandma, did you see what Santa left? A jumpy gym for my house. Thanks for telling him that I wanted one!

I sure know how to make GG laugh.

Will's first Christmas was so much fun. He was spoiled, as I expected, getting a lot of really cute clothes and toys. He was so cute to watch. He loved eating the wrapping paper and tissue paper and banging on the boxes. He was able to meet members of the family for the first time. I think he liked all of the attention. We really appreciate all of the wonderful gifts and we hope all of you had a Merry Christmas.

Mom's been waiting for this day!

I'm a little late reporting but Will is sleeping through the night. He has been now for about 2 weeks. He goes to bed between 8:30 and 9:00 and sleeps until 7:30 or 8:00. It's marvelous. I forgot what a full nights rest was like. The swaddler is a thing of the past as well. Next is the pacifier.



He came down with a cold over the weekend. This is his third one and the worst one. The others didn't seem to affect him too badly but this one is getting the best of him. I didn't realize how hard it is to use an aspirator on a screaming, squirmy baby.

Other than that he is doing great. He is doing well eating his cereal now. I think he actually likes it. I think I'll try baby food again after Christmas.

He loves you all. Merry Christmas

5 months old

Look what I can do!

I'm tired. Bed time has been rough the last 5 days. He is not sleeping well at all. We are still putting him to bed without being swaddled. He immediately rolls onto his stomach and can go to sleep but wakes up every hour. I give in some nights just so we both can get some sleep.

Over the weekend, I discovered that he can sit up. Yeah Will! He can actually stay there for 2-3 minutes in some cases. He's starting to try and bring his knees up under him. This usually makes him scoot backwards. He is definitely going to be on the move before to much longer.

Roley Poley

The night before last we found Will on his tummy in the crib. Up until now, he has always gone to sleep wrapped in the swaddler. He is starting to out grow it and he's strong enough to pull his arms out during the night. I knew it was getting close to the time when we should try putting him to sleep without it so I decided to try it out this week. The first night didn't start so well. He finally fell off to sleep but I ended up swaddling him around midnight. The next night went a little better. He didn't cry but we did hear a lot of movement in the crib. When we looked at him, he was on his tummy. Apparently he didn't know what to do because he was trying to push himself up instead of laying his head down to sleep. That was his first roll from back to front, and like the front to back roll, I missed it. I had to swaddle him again that night too. But, last night he went right to sleep. Once I put him back down after his 4 am feeding he must have rolled over right away. When I got back to bed I noticed that he was on his tummy and fast asleep. He slept that way for about 1 hour 30 minutes. I had to go in a flip him back over because when he woke up he was mad. I guess he was to tired to roll himself onto his back. But then he went back to sleep. So.... we just completed our first whole night without the swaddler. It didn't take as long as I thought. I thought it would be a very hard process. Way to go baby Will!

4 months old

Will turned 4 months old last week. He went to the doctor for a check up and another series of shots. He weighs 14lbs 12oz and is 26 1/4 inches long. He is pretty tall for his age- 86 percentile. Nurse Chris said it was ok to start with solid food. We've been trying the cereal for the last couple of days and it's not going so good. He started out pretty good but now he doesn't want anything to do with it. He screams until you give him his milk. He loves his milk. I'll keep trying. Otherwise maybe we'll wait until next month. We're also practicing sitting up. He can actually do it for about 4 seconds. He's started holding his bottle from time to time too. We've recently had another break through. He's had 5 baths in a row without crying. We're really having a lot of fun with him now. He likes to read books, eat his fingers, drool, laugh out loud, grab noses, and squeal....loudly.

Tummy Time

Our Little Pumpkin