Andy & Jessica

Our Thanksgiving weekend was jammed packed. On Thanksgiving Day, we spent the day with Andy’s mom’s side of the family. That night, we went to my parents’ house. Katie, Phil and Ivan were there, along with my brother. That weekend we celebrated Katie and Phil’s birthdays. Katie and Phil share the same birthday (November 27th). Phil turned 30 and Katie turned 29. Little Ivan must really adore me. He was sucking on my face and I thought it was so cute that I made everyone race to grab a camera. Well, I let the little guy suck on my face too long and ended up with a hickey. I never would have guessed that would have happened. Live and learn!

Before Jude came, I had very little experience with babies. I remember holding babies a few times. I remember that the babies would cry and I would have to pass them back to their moms. I remember thinking how fun it would be to be the mom that the baby was passed back to. My little Jude is helping me fulfill this fantasy. The little guy has bouts of separation anxiety. Even when I pass him to Andy, he will often cry. When I take him back, he is fine. Maybe it’s bad to admit, but I do get some satisfaction from this because it demonstrates that Jude prefers being with me over others. That’s my boy!

More pictures are up. You can view them here.

Yesterday was Andy’s 30th birthday. We celebrated on Sunday. We went to church and then Andy’s family came over. Andy’s brother and dad helped Andy rake the leaves (which is a fairly simple process considering that Andy’s parents have a lawn tractor that does most of the work). My mom also came over. We ate a delicious meal that was mostly cooked by Andy’s mom, although I did make the popovers. We ate Dairy Queen cake. And then we assembled some shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. I have noticed an interesting pattern. I do not believe that Andy has ever waited until his birthday to get his main present from me. His main present this year was Leopard (some new operating system for one of his many computers). He convinced me to give it to him on Saturday morning so that he could install it then because he wouldn’t have time to do so on Sunday or Monday.

Jude’s cousin, Ivan, is a darling little critter. When Jude first visited him shortly after his birth, little Ivan was still quite jaundiced. Some people have been commenting about how dark Ivan is. He really isn’t that dark. It’s just that the pictures posted on our website don’t accurately reflect him anymore. We need to post new ones. Here is the link to Katie and Phil’s recent pictures of Ivan: http://www.flickr.com/photos/reindl/show/

As of tomorrow, our little guy will be 7 months old. He is just the best little creature. Andy and I are absolutely crazy about him. Here is an update on the little guy.

• As of a couple weeks ago, he weighed 18 pounds (55th percentile for boys his age). He was just 4 ounces more than his cousin Ivan on the same day.
• His head is in the 95th percentile and his height at the 75th percentile.
• He is getting his 2nd tooth on the bottom.
• He loves standing (with us or something to balance against). When I try to sit him down, he’ll stiffen his legs so that he can stand instead.
• He suddenly prefers sucking a pacifier over a finger (that’s great now that he can bite us and make it hurt).
• He still hasn’t slept through the night. The last couple nights he got up 3 times. I feed him every time to get him to go back to sleep faster. I still can’t stand the thought of making him cry himself to sleep.
• He now hates the car seat.
• He likes being read to.
• He like being sung to.