Christmas Lights on the Square

The week before Christmas my family went to dinner to celebrate Ryan's birthday. After that we all went up to the square to take in the lights. I have a feeling this will become a family tradition.Harlan loves all the lights.

 

Woo Pig Sooie!

 Aunt LuLu and Uncle Spencer

 Uncle JD and Allison

 Mommy and Harlan, my little reindeer!

 The lights really are magical! 

6 Months

December 19 has always been a special day and now its doubly special. December 19 was my mom's birthday and now it is Harlan's 1/2 birthday. I think that its not a coincidence and a very special way Harlan will always be connected to her now.

So we celebrated this Dec. 19 with Harlan turning 6 months old. So, so, so hard to believe. He is now closer to a year old than he is a newborn. Tear

Our little man is now 16 lbs and 14 oz (on Dec. 20) and getting taller. We are still in 6 month size clothes but are about to outgrow those legs. Soon we will be going into 9 month. He is also still in size 2 diapers.

Harlan is still only consuming breast milk. Now that he has hit the 6-month mark we plan on introducing some solids. Wish us luck! We will continue with breast milk and I will continue nursing. I absolutely love that time we have together. He eats when he wakes up in the morning, around 7 a.m., 4-5 times at daycare, once when he gets home and another 1-2 times after that before he goes to bed around 8 p.m. He pretty much sleeps through the night and we love that!

This month Harlan started acting shy. It is really pretty cute. If you smile at him, he will smile back, giggle a little and then turn his head like he's bashful. It is so easy to make him laugh and his little giggle makes my day.

We still can't sit up on our own but we are just days away from crawling. This month he started getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth like he wants to go somewhere. There have been a few times he has picked up his knees but he hasn't quite figured it out yet. Every time he does that, the camera gets whipped out and I'm ready to catch the moment. I guess we will master the whole sitting up thing later.

He has also started playing with his toys now. It is fun to watch him discover new things about each of them. His favorite is Mortimer the Moose.

Some highlights from this month include meeting our new best friend Tate,

Playing in our very first snow,

and celebrating Daddy's 33rd Birthday.

The 6th month was full of holidays, celebration and new tricks. Harlan is growing so quickly and it makes my heart so happy and so sad all at the same time. We love you HL! 

Our Own Baby Jesus

Harlan was born at just about the right time which means he was the perfect age to make his acting debut as.........Baby Jesus!

Our church asked us if we would play Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus in the youth Christmas play. It was a lot of fun, and even better that none of us had any lines. We came out at the end and the kids brought "Jesus" lots of gifts.

Harlan did great! We fed him right before we went out so he was pretty content. When we walked out, there was a collective "awwww" because nobody knew we were in it. Harlan was very entertained by the lights and looking out into the crowd at everybody.

Who knew our little man would be a star at such a young age!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving and FOOD FOOD FOOD. We had a great holiday this year spending time with both of our families and of course our little one.

We started off with dinner at my parents house on Wednesday night. My grandmother came to spend the week with us and it was great to spend time with her. Harlan is her third great grandson and she loved playing with him all week. 

There were 10 of us there for dinner that night and that is just about the perfect size. We all hung out all day and ate and ate and ate. We had enough food for at least 20 people.

 JD and Allison

 If you can't tell, Harlan loves putting fingers (his or anybody else's) in his mouth. 

 Our First Thanksgiving as a family of 3

We spent Thanksgiving Day at the Pettigrew house. I was bad and only took the camera out once. Here is Harlan with his great uncle Chad and Uncle Devin. Chad was the baby hog that day for sure. 

We love that both of our families are so close and we get to spend holidays with both of them. Harlan had a great first Thankgiving and next year, he will actually get to eat some of the feast! 

5 Months Old!

Harlan is now a whole 5 months old! Can you believe it? We can't!

This month was full of milestones for him: his first Halloween, his dedication and his 4-month checkup

We saw Dr. Jackson on Nov. 7 for his well baby visit. Harlan is weighing in at 15 lbs 1 oz and is 26.25 inches long. That makes him 40th percentile in weight and 70th percentile in height. I mean really, did we have any doubt this kid would be tall? He is just getting a head start I guess.

There was a scary moment for me at the visit. Dr. Jackson noticed something that hadn't healed right since birth. He said it is fairly common in boys but if it doesn't correct itself by 12 months Harlan will need surgery. Talk about making my heart stop. I can't even imagine him having to go through a surgery. Once Dr. Jackson saw the terror in my face he reassured me that he sees this a lot and only about 10% of his patients who have this need surgery. That made me feel betters so I'm not going to worry myself about it just yet.

Harlan doesn't love laying on his playmat anymore but his new favorite thing is bouncing in his Jumparoo. Man does he love that. He will go crazy in that thing. And then when you take him out of it, he will continue to jump.

He has also started giggling a bit this month. Especially when we play peek-a-boo. He loves that game!

Sleeping has been interesting lately. Right after his appointment there was about a week when he was getting up 3 times a night to eat. He must have been going through a growth spurt. We are back to sleeping through the night for the most part for now, fingers crossed!

We are still losing hair, still in size 2 diapers and still only eating breast milk. Still no teeth either but he wants to chew on everything, including his toes. That is a pretty impressive trick. He can roll all over the place and if we set him on the floor, he is liable to roll clear across it in a matter of seconds.

I can't wait until next month when we start celebrating the holidays. It is going to be so much better this year now that we have our little man with us!

Dedication

We had the privilege of dedicating Harlan at our church on Sunday, Nov. 4. This was a very special time for me, Ryan and our families. I love the fact that our family started at First Christian Church with our wedding and now we will get to see our children grow up here. We love our church family and couldn't imagine being anywhere else. The ceremony was a symbol of our commitment to dedicate our son to the Lord and raise him in the church.

Harlan wore the Smith Family christening gown. He was the 20th child to wear the nearly 60-year-old gown for a christening/baptism/dedication. My mom was #2, I was #8 and Spencer #10 now Harlan at #20. The gown is beautiful but definitely very fragile. I am pretty sure we added a couple more holes to it. Oops! Ryan also assured Harlan that this was the last time he would ever have to wear a dress.

We were so lucky to have our families there to witness and celebrate with us. We love that Harlan is so LOVED by so many.

Ryan and I are truly blessed to be able to call Harlan our son and thank God everyday for our precious gift.

Harlan's First Halloween

I've never been a big Halloween person but man, it's a whole new world when you have a little one. It is sooooo much more fun to dress them up rather than having to dress up yourself. And it's especially nice when they don't complain about it just yet. 

Four months is a hard age to buy a costume for. Baby costumes come in two sizes: 0-6 months and 6-12 months. And there are a lot more 6-12 month size than the other. Plus he can't walk yet so you kind of need something that doesn't have to be identified only if he is standing up. I started looking online for a costume and all I was seeing was lions and monkeys and dogs. They were all super cute but I wanted something different. Don't know why, call me crazy.

And then I saw it! Harlan's first ever Halloween costume was going to be a Shrimp! And I put him in a pot because I thought that would be cute (and assured he was sitting up for pictures).

Ryan was out of town all last week so I knew Harlan and I weren't going to do a "real" Halloween. Mom and Dad always host a Halloween chili dinner for our extended family during the week so we headed over there for Harlan's costume reveal. Our cousins were there including this adorable "bat" family - Batman, Batgirl and Baby Bat! 

Harlan's uncles are slightly obsessed with their little shrimp

And here is the full costume, tail and all. 

We had lots of fun this year and I look forward to future Halloweens full of more costumes and lots of Trick-o-Treating. I can't even begin to imagine what Harlan is going to want to dress up as.