Happy Campers

This past weekend we made the trek up to the Lake for our hometeam's semi-annual camping trip. This year the trip was especially fun not only because it was Little Man's first camping trip but because we were joined by my parents, my sister and our brother-in-law. The whle weekend held a miriad of new experiences for Little Man, all of which were fun to observe.

It began with a car packed full of bags and babies. Yes, there are in fact three carseats in the back of our car (Little Man is in the middle). Little Man had fun having company in the car; he boys had a blast on the ride down to the campsite babbling, drooling and grunting.

After we arrived and staked our claim on the ultimate camping spots we set up camp and Little Man took a nice little nap in his Moses basket. We were very surprised when Little Man was visited several times by a beautiful butterfly. It took the sweet little bug several times to work up the courage to actually land on Little Man but once he did he just couldn't stay away.

That night we all sat around telling stories as Paul and John prepared their famous Hobo Pie and S'mores (daddy's favorites). Little Man was fascinated by the fire and spent hours just staring at the beautiful flames while watching John cook the food. It was such an eventful day that Little Man slept 8 straight hours that night for the first time (mommy was ecstatic!).

The next morning we all hung out telling more stories and eating more of the famous food while Aunt Ash spent some time working with Little Man as he tried to sit up (he has been trying to sit up for about a week now). Afterwards Little Man took a much needed nap in the arms of Aunt Ash followed by another nap in Uncle J's arms (camping is tiring!).

That afternoon, Little Man, Nana and Mommy took a long walk with the jogger (a first for little man) then when the adults headed out to Steve's boat spent he settled down in Nana' and Pop's tent for another nap, this time with big sis' Daisy.

After some much needed water from a bottle (also a new thing) Little Man took a late afternoon nap in Pop's arms before dinner and our evening devotional with the other couples from the adjoining campsites. Little Man was so alert and active during the devotional and fell asleep to his Nana's beautiful singing voice and then slept 7 hours!

Sunday morning mommy woke up to find Little Man staring up through the tent at the sky just as happy as could be. Little Man was all smiles and laughs and suprised us all when Nana walked up and mommy said, "LM, say hi to Nana!" and he let out a huge loud sigh that sounded like "Ha!". When it finally came time to leave mommy strapped Little Man in his carseat and he started crying; guess our little guy is a natural-born outdoorsman!

Busy LIttle Bees

What a busy week! Little Man successfully finished his first week in the mother's day out program (mom only cried once) then had both Aunt Ash and Mimi visit. After an entire week of brand new experiences, a six-hour shopping trip (with mommy and Aunt Ash), lots of hugs and snuggles from a variety of people and finally a hometeam picnic in the park Little Man was still all laughs for a play session with mommy and daddy Sunday night. What a happy baby!

Spring Has Arrived

Spring , masquerading as Summer, has arrived in full force! We have had absolutely beautiful weather in the upper 90's for the past week and the first warm Easter I can remember in years! Mommy and Little Man celebrated Easter with Pop because Nana and Aunt Hay were in the Dominican Republic and daddy was on shift. Church was so much fun and although Little Man is too young to participate in the egg hunt, we did attend the children's program and sang all of the fun songs and watched a wonderful drama. LM looked dashing in his Easter outfit and even tolerated the hat for all of 20 minutes. Mommy had to work during the worship service so our good friends Paul and Jackie offered to take care of LM so mommy didn't have to juggle baby and powerpoint. LM slept peacefully throughout the service in the arms of our good friend Paul. Thanks Paul and Jackie!

Best Buds

Now that Little Man is able to spend time with other babies we have been spending a lot of time hanging out with my friend Jackie and her youngest son, Jacob. Although Little Man is accustomed to seeing Jacob he still always acts fascinated and even looks a little confused by everything Jacob does. Today Little Man's teacher said that the two of them were lying beside each other and every time Little Man would reach out and touch Jacob, Jacob would laugh hysterically.

A Barrell Of Laughs

Little Man is FINALLY laughing! We heard traces of his silly little giggle last week but figured it was either gas, ha, or unintentional. But today as dad was changing his diaper and blowing raspberries on his tiny little nose, Little Man let out this deep chuckle. We both froze and Little Man's eyes got as big as saucers in response. Trav blew another raspberry on his nose and he giggled again! We cheered and jumped up and down and it scared him half to death. Who knew a laugh could be so exciting!

Hip Hip Hooray

Today was Little Man's first day in the mother's day out program and although mommy was a little aprehensive about leaving him with someone else everything went really well. Everyone said that he seems to be a really well-adjusted baby and was perfectly content just to "hang out" with the other babies. Praise God for small blessings!

Count Your "Mini" Blessings

So... Little Man is finally sleeping through the night (I am not sure who decided 4-6 hours was "through the night" but I'll take what I can get). I am sad to say that I was not able to enjoy the uninterrupted sleep as I should have because that little annoying voice inside my head kept waking me up to check on the baby that had been quiet for too long. Now that I want him to sleep "through the night", he of course will not oblige; he opts instead for "through the night" naps. As annoyed as I was to marry a morning person, I am finding that the night-owl-baby I had hoped would keep me company in the wee hours is much more of a die hard than I am.