Lee’s Baptism

Sunday, December 18 was a very special day for our family.  Lee was baptized and our family was there to witness this wonderful day.  We took vows as Lee’s parents and the congregation took a vow as well. 

Parental Vows:

1.  Do you acknowledge your child’s need of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit?

2.  Do you claim God’s covenant promises on their behalf, and do you look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation, as you do for your own?

3.  Do you now unreservedly dedicate your child to God, and promise, in humble reliance upon divine grace, that you will endeavor to set before them a godly example, that you will pray with and for them, that you will teach them the doctrines of our holy religion, and that you will strive, by all the means of God’s appointment, to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?

Congregational Vow:

Do you as a congregation undertake the responsibility of assisting the parents in the Christian nurture of these children?

As I write out these vows, I am reflecting on how beautiful they are and I pray that Cole and I will reflect on them often.  Lee’s baptism meant so much to us as we stood in front of the Church body and accepted the Lord’s covenant promises on behalf of our son.  We are thankful and praise the Lord for His faithfulness and we pray that Lee will know Christ as his Savior one day and have a personal relationship with Him.

 

Pastor Bill Lamberth baptized Lee

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”  And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”  Acts 2: 37-39

We had everyone over to our house after Church for a lunch to celebrate!

Five Months

Weight:  I’m thinking Lee probably weighs about 17-18 pounds by now.  He is really growing and getting longer.  He is getting heavy to carry and he’s helping me get a good arm workout in everyday!

Clothing: Lee is wearing mostly 6 month clothing.  He can still wear a few of his 3-6 month outfits and we have gotten him in a few 9 month outfits too.  He is wearing a size 3 diaper.

Feeding: Lee is still breastfeeding.  Not much has changed here this month.  He still eats 5 times a day and is a good eater.  Although, I have noticed that he gets much more distracted now when he eats. 

Sleep: Lee is still sleeping great for the most part – about 11 hours at night.  He is taking three naps a day.  His morning nap is always his best nap.  We had a couple of rough patches with Lee’s sleep schedule this month due to his first cold and daylight savings – both happened at the same time – ugh!  Lee’s cold wasn’t bad enough to go to the doctor, he didn’t have a fever or anything.  But, it did take a toll on all of the family’s sleeping schedule.  Poor thing was waking up at all hours of the night.  I knew he didn’t feel well because that hasn’t happened in a long time!

Activities: Lee is so happy and “talking” (babbling) all the time.  He also started sitting up this month.  He’s still pretty wobbly, but he can hold himself up while seated by using his hands (we call this the tripod).  Lee loves his jumperoo and laying on his blanket playing with his toys.  What a sweet little boy we have!

Four Months

 

Weight:  When we went to Lee’s 4 month check up, he weighed in at 16 lbs 5 oz (75%).  The doctor was really impressed with how much he has caught up and reminded us that the percentiles are being calculated based on babies that were full term.  Just imagine if he wasn’t born 5 weeks early! 

Length:  Lee measured at 25 3/4 inches (75%).  He has grown half a foot since birth – wow!

Head Circumference:  I haven’t mentioned Lee’s head circumference from his previous appointments, but it’s kind of funny.  At his four month appointment, his head measured in the 10th percentile.  Yep, we’re in the double digits now.  At his 2 week appointment it was in the 3rd percentile and at his 8 week appointment it was in the 4th percentile.  I was worried about it since the measurements are so different than his height and weight, but the doctor assured me it was fine because they just look at the rate of growth.  Also, when the doctor adjusted it for his actual due date, it was more in line with his height and weight percentiles so it could have something to do with him being early.  

Clothing: Lee is wearing mostly 6 month clothing.  He can still wear a few of his 3-6 month outfits too.  He is wearing a size 2 diaper.

Feeding: Lee is still breastfeeding.  We changed our schedule a little this month to spread out the feedings.  He can make it about 3 – 4 hours in between feedings.  I also dropped one of the feedings, so he is just eating 5 times a day now.  As you can tell from his cute chubby cheeks, he did not suffer from dropping a feeding!  At his four month check up, the doctor said he would normally tell us we can start rice cereal and some other baby foods at four months, but he wants us to wait to start introducing these until he is at four months from his actual due date.  So, we will at least wait until the beginning of December to do that. 

Sleep: Lee sleeps about 11 hours at night now.  We usually start getting him ready for bed at 8:00 and he goes down by 9:00.  He sleeps until 8:00 in the morning and a lot of times I have to wake him up.  Yes, we do realize how lucky we are to have such a great little sleeper!  Lee is also napping well too.  He takes a morning nap and a couple of afternoon naps.  He is still good about sleeping in his infant carrier if we are out and about, but I do try to get him to nap in his bed because he gets a better nap that way.  Lee is also a very hard sleeper and not a high maintenance sleeper.  Generally the door to his room is open while he sleeps and I can go in and out of his room without waking him.  This child just likes to sleep.  We don’t use sound machines, blackout shades or anything fancy.  We noticed this month during his naps and at night he discovered his thumb and he is now officially a thumb sucker.  It’s always the left thumb and the other four fingers stick straight up and cover his face.  As cute as it is, I was really hoping that he would be more attached to the paci versus his thumb.  It doesn’t look like there is any stopping him though.  The good thing is that it calms him down and if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he will find his thumb and put himself right back to sleep.  We also stopped swaddling him this month.  He was getting strong enough to break out of the miracle blanket and he was doing it to get to his thumb.  So, now he sleeps in his sleep sack and we have put all of the swaddle blanket contraptions away.

Activities: Lee is such a happy baby!  He smiles and coos and even started to laugh right about the time he turned four months.  We discovered his laugh when we started to tickle him.  It is the cutest thing!  He loves it when we talk, sing and interact with him.  Whenever Lee smiles you will usually see his tongue sticking out – it cracks us up!  We are having so much fun being Lee’s mommy and daddy.  We thank God every day for our little blessing!

San Antonio

We took Lee on his first vacation to San Antonio at the end of October.  We went with Josh, Laura and Elle and we all had a great time relaxing and hanging out.  Laura and I decided that we needed to take the guys somewhere fun where they could play golf together for their birthdays (Cole turned 30 in May and Josh turned 31 in April).  We decided on the J W Marriott Resort and it was great!  It is a beautiful resort and it has all kinds of fun things to do from the water park, pools and lazy river (all were heated), golf, spa, sports bar and restaurants.  We didn’t even leave the resort – it was much easier just to stay there with the kids and we had everything there we needed. 

The guys played golf one afternoon and Laura and I watched the kiddos.  Apparently the PGA tour had been at the resort golf course the weekend before so the course was in tournament condition – the guys said it was a great course!  The next day Laura and I went to the spa and the guys watched the kids while also watching the Aggie game.  We thought it was pretty funny that Lee took a 3 hour afternoon nap for me when I was watching him but he only took a 20 minute nap for Cole while he was watching him.  I guess Lee wanted to stay up and watch the Aggie game with the guys!

Since the water was heated and it was sunny and in the mid 80’s, we spent a little time in the pool and lazy river.  This was Lee’s first time to “swim.”  He looked so cute in his little bathing suit and hat.  The water was a little cool for him, so he didn’t really get in the water.  His favorite thing to do was float in the lazy river while laying on mom. 

We had a great time with our sweet friends and we made a lot of great memories!

Cute little boy in his bathing suit!

Snoozing by the pool

Daddy and Lee

Lee smiling at Daddy – LOVE!

Just taking it all in

The view from our room

Josh and Cole enjoying a beverage on the balcony

Lee and Elle – cuties!

The group before dinner one night

Family pic

Playing in the pool with my boys!

We refer to this pic as sumo baby – ha!

State Fair Livestock Auction

At the beginning of October we went to the State Fair Livestock Auction. Cole volunteered on the Livestock Auction committee to raise money for scholarships for youth in FFA and in some of the schools surrounding Fair Park. It was a really fun day and we got to spend some time looking around the fair also. It was Cole’s first time in the fair – hard to believe since we have been in Dallas about 7 years now! Lee was a little trouper and did so well hanging out at the fair all day with mom and dad. Lee and I also went to the fair one day with Gramma, so Lee had a great introduction to the fair at only 3 months old.

Here are some pictures of the Livestock Auction. I had never been to a real auction before so it was fun to see the auctioneer in action and all the cute kids showing their animals. The kids work really hard and are very proud of the animals that they show. Cole actually got to bid on some animals and we “bought” a goat and a pig. The girls that showed the goat and pig were so polite and sweet. You will see from the pictures that Cole thought it would be funny to use Lee to bid. So, whenever he wanted to bid, he would lift Lee up. The auctioneer got a big kick out of it and said it was the first time in 30 years that he’s ever seen anyone bid with a baby. Then when he was doing his auction calls he kept asking Cole to raise the baby! It was a fun day and we will definitely be there next year too.

Cole and his Lil' Buckaroo

Cole bidding with Lee

Lee was exhausted!

Three Months

 

Lee turned 3 months a couple weeks ago.  He is just getting so much bigger and is so much more alert now!  It has been so fun to see all of the new things he is doing this month and to see how much he is growing. 

Weight:  I think he weighs almost 15 lbs. now.  This is not a professional measurement, I just tried to weigh him at home while I was holding him…ha!

Clothing: Lee is wearing 3-6 month clothing, although some of his outfits are getting a little snug!

Feeding: Lee is still breastfeeding every three hours during the day (about 6 times). We usually start our day about 7-7:30 am.  Lee really likes to sleep and a lot of times we have to go wake him up to get the day started.  We have been steadily moving up his last feeding to put him to bed a little earlier.  We usually do the last feeding around 8:30 or 9:00.  Lee still spits up a lot, but we are all just getting used to it.  You will usually see him in a bib and we end up changing outfits several times a day.  Oh well, at least I get to make sure we get a lot of use out of all of these cute baby clothes!

Sleep: Now that we have moved up Lee’s last feeding, he is sleeping longer at night.  He will consistently sleep between 9-10 hours at night.  He is doing well with napping too and naps between each feeding.  We try to have him awake for about 30 min to an hour after each feeding and then he is ready for a little snooze.  Oh the life of a baby!

Activities: Lee is so much more alert now and he has really started to recognize us.  He will get the biggest smiles when he sees us and when we talk to him. It is so sweet!!  He holds his head up really well now and we have started putting him in the bumbo seat to start practicing sitting up.  Lee is such a happy baby and has such an easy going temperament.  He likes to go lots of places with us and is such a little trouper!

First Road Trip

We made our first road trip with Lee a couple of weekends ago.  We thought it would be fitting that his first road trip was to College Station to see the Aggies play.  Unfortunately the game didn’t turn out like we hoped, but we still had a great time!  Lee proved to be a great road tripper and now we feel good about taking him some more places.  We went with the Rosinskis and we appreciated them being patient with us on Lee’s first road trip.  We had to stop so he could eat on the way there and we had a little traffic getting out of Dallas.  I think it took us 4.5 hours to get there.  We did much better coming back home though.  I fed Lee right before we left and we trucked it home and made it in less than 3 hours and he just slept the whole way.   I was nervous about how Lee would do in the hotel room with us, but he was a rockstar sleeper as usual.  He slept in the pack n play for about 9 solid hours each night.  Thank you sweet boy! 

On Saturday Lee got to attend his first Aggie tailgate. 

Lee got to meet his little friend, Lane.  Lee and Lane are Aggie buddies and the future class of ‘33!

Reecie finally got to hold Lee!  Reecie and Matt made the long trip to come see Lee in the hospital, but they didn’t get to hold him since he was in the NICU.

Lee and I didn’t get to watch any of the game though.  It was extremely hot and we ended up only going into the stadium to watch Cole go out on the field.  Cole, Josh, Nick, Courtney and Eric were all recognized on the field during the 4th quarter for their contributions in organizing Red, White and Blue Out on September 22, 2001.  This was the 10 year anniversary of the game after 9/11 where Kyle field looked like this.

 

Since Cole got to go on the field, we got a few pictures before they were recognized.

 

 

A special thanks to these five who organized Red, White and Blue Out.  It was not an easy task as they pulled everything off in just 10 short days.  They were able to raise over $200,000 for the families of the NYC firefighters and police who lost their lives.  They made us all proud to be standing for America during such an emotional time in America’s history.