Aaron's Blessing, Take 2

Two weeks ago, on August 31, was Aaron's baby blessing. It was a great day; we had a wonderful time and were very happy that so many of our family and friends were able to come. Unfortunately, in all the hubbub of the day, we forgot to take pictures (d'oh!). I felt really sad about that (and I still do, a little). I mean, what kind of a mom forgets to take pictures on her baby's blessing day? Well, I've accepted that the kind of mom that forgets is the tired, distracted, hostess-bein' mom, so I guess I'm ok.

But I still wanted pictures. So this morning, two weeks later, we staged a few "blessing day" pictures. Aaron has been growing so fast, I could barely get his little outfit on. In fact, the neck of his shirt was a too small for his head; it scraped his face a little when I put it on, and he started crying. :-( He's ok though. It's a good thing we finally got around to taking those pictures though--a day later and I wouldn't have been able to get the clothes on at all!

So without further ado, here are some pictures of the little guy, mommy, and daddy:

And here's one of the back porch, still all set up for the party. Today, however, our only guest was Leia...

So there you have it. If anyone happens to have any pictures from the actual day, feel free to send them to us :-)

First Haircut

Thursday was Aaron's two month birthday. To celebrate, we decided to give him a haircut. His first haircut ever. Who has ever heard of a two-month-old needing a haircut? 

Here are some before pictures:

And after (not too bad for someone who has never cut anyone's hair before--especially not a wiggly baby's): 

Two Months

Aaron had his two month checkup today. At the baby checkups they do some measurements. I thought that I'd share them with you. He is 12 lbs 11 oz and 25.25 inches tall! I thought he'd weight a bit more than that but he is still in the 75% for his weight. But get this, his height.... 97% percentile!!!! What? Where'd that come from? I'm 5'7"... why didn't I get any 97% percentile height?

Another way to look at it: he has grown almost 5 inches in less than 2 months! (Redundancy incoming alert)...... WHAT? All I can say is that babies are crazy. Or at least my baby is crazy.

Another thing they did at this check up were his two month vaccinations. Boy, was that fun! He was so upset for hours, his legs (where the injections were administered) got a little red and puffy, needless to say it was a frightening day for under-warned, first time parents.

After some baby Tylenol, mommy cuddles, an exploding diaper, and finally some food he settled down and was pretty happy for the rest of the day. What a relief when he finally started being happy and smiling again.

Here are my two favorite pictures from today. He was showing off his new favorite activity.

Guilty Pleasures 2: The Fall of Ice Princess

In light of the insight presented in Alex's comment, I am amending my previous post: instead of watching Ice Princess, I will be watching the Max Payne movie. I can't wait to see Marky Mark as the title character. 

Now I must go and play Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne in preparation.

  

Guilty Pleasures

I'm not particularly in touch with pop culture. I know about things like The Dark Knight, Harry Potter, and Oprah. Those, and whatever current fashion trends I glean (and sometimes laugh at) from my monthly fix of InStyle magazine. So it's not surprising that I didn't know about Twilight until the third installment was out; the hairdressers were talking about it while I was getting my hair dyed last year, in case you were wondering how it happened.

Now, I don't really consider myself a slave to fashion, but I must admit when millions of people are reading the same book, I get a little curious about it. So I read it. And scratched my head. And wondered why on earth this particular book was so popular. I mean, it was okay I guess, but I didn't understand why anyone who wasn't a thirteen-year-old girl would like it so much. It just didn't appeal to me, because not only am I not thirteen, I'm also not really what you'd call a romantic (and the book is basically Romance Novel Jr.).

That said, I am now for some reason intrigued by it again. Maybe it's because of the movie version that's coming out soon, or maybe because I recently discovered that an aunt of mine, who happens to be a remarkably intelligent and well read person, loves the series. So part of me wants to read the other books. Another part of me, however, doesn't want to get sucked in again only to be disappointed again. That part of me remembers the last time I read something--The DaVinci Code--just because it was popular only to discover how abysmal it was.

What to do? Do I give in to my curiosity and read the other books, or do I spend my very precious and rare spare time reading something that I'm pretty sure is actually good (and that I already own)? Or do I just disregard others' guilty pleasure and indulge my own? Perhaps the last option is the way to go. Ice Princess, here I come.

Real Person Clothes, Rolling Over, and Other Milestones

Today I took Aaron shopping for the first time by myself. Real shopping, at the mall and everything. I was worried about taking the stroller; I wasn't sure if it would fit in any dressing rooms (it's one of those gigantic travel system strollers) and I was afraid I might be the only one there with a big baby tank. Silly me, did I forget that I live in Provo? Of course there were thousands of people pushing strollers around the mall--half of them much larger than mine (to accommodate multiple stroller-aged children). And, with a little finagling, the stroller managed to fit in every dressing room I used. 

Anyway, on to the point. I got real person clothes. That aren't maternity clothes. That actually fit. Including shirts. Granted, they're not exactly the same size as I wore pre-pregnancy, but they're real clothes. No elastic panels or bands in the pants, and the shirts are remarkably un-tent-like. I think they will do nicely while I work on getting back to my normal size.

After I got home, it was time for Aaron to have a little "belly time." He did his usual routine: lay there for a minute after I turned him onto his stomach, started wiggling and moving his head around while making little squeaks and grunts, then began getting upset and ready to cry by the end. I was about to turn him back over when he just turned himself over. He had been threatening to do it since we got him home from the hospital (he's pretty strong), but it still took me by surprise. It was quite exciting.

   

Sleepy Baby

Yesterday was not a good day for sleeping for Aaron. He usually has three substantial naps during the day; yesterday he had one and a half. Needless to say, by the end of the day he was exhausted and fussy. After having some food, a bath, and lots of cuddling, he finally went to sleep at around 11.

And he slept the whole night.

And not for just the four or five hours that people call "sleeping through the night"; he slept for seven and a half hours. Whoa. Not only that, but after a diaper change and a feeding, he went BACK to sleep--before we could even get a burp out.

Now if only he'd sleep that much every night. For the rest of his life. That would be awesome