Evan

 Evan is so focused. His new hair is coming in well now.  It looks to be a brown color.

 When he is sleeping, he is totally relaxed.

 When he is awake, he is very active.  He likes to play with all his toys & grabs anything in his path. He doesn't like to let go of anything once he has it in his grasp.

He weighs 8 pounds 8 ounces today!  He has gained 4 ounces in just a few days.

Mommy & Daddy

Evan just chilling with his mommy & daddy.

 Tummy time on the boppy is now very difficult as Evan loves to just roll over now.  He can roll on his side or back even on the boppy.  So we're having to do tummy time on the floor now, where his face is closer to the blanket so he wants to try to eat it.

 Notice his little thumb has worked its way out of his mitten sleeve.  He likes to try to suck on it when he can find it.

7 Weeks Old

It seems like I just typed that Evan was 6 weeks old. Time really does just speed up when you have a baby. I always thought I'd be one of those people that would be tired of staying home all the time and would enjoy going back to work. But I really have enjoyed being home with Evan. I haven't felt cabin fever at all. In just 4 more weeks, I'll be going back to work, unless we win the lottery between now & then.

Evan is really locking in on some of his toys this week. He grabs them, but mostly by mistake. When he does get hold of them, he tries to get his mouth on them to eat them. He mostly likes to look at our pictures on the wall or the ceiling fan. He makes great eye contact and will look towards the voice or noise that he hears. We're working on building strong neck and shoulder muscles by doing tummy time every day. I use the boppy pillow with him a lot for this. He can hold his neck up pretty good if he's not sleepy. If he's sleepy, he lays his head down & tries to chew the pillow.

If I prop a pillow up under him, he can roll from his stomach to his back, on either side. He just works those legs until he flips over. He cannot roll over yet if he's flat on his tummy or back.

His new hair growth is coming in more & more every day, along with his fingernails growing. I have to keep clipping them once or twice a week as he tends to scratch his face a lot. He also makes the cutest noises. Some sounds are like a little monkey, some like a pterodactyl, some like he's got a weird asthma inhalation, some is just fast breathing, some like he's saying hey, and lots of other little coos. He can also smack his lips so it sounds & looks like he's blowing kisses. He's done this since birth, mostly when he's really hungry.

I have found that he sleeps best at night when I don't let him nap too long during the day. He likes to take little cat naps, but if I wake him up after 30 minutes or so, he sleeps longer stretches at night. In fact last night, we fed him at 8:15pm, he fell asleep around 9pm & didn't wake up until 3:15am. That's 7 hours between feedings! However, after he gets up that initial time, he is usually back up within 3 hours every feeding after that. Now if only I would get to bed at the same time & get the same number of hours sleep.

We celebrated Vince's birthday on Friday. I cooked him filet mignon, baked potatoes, greens, and chocolate cake. It was a nice quiet dinner at home. In fact we partied so hard, Vince & Evan had to take a nap on Saturday together. Two of my favorite men:

Photo Shoot

Mom asked me if I would get some pictures of Evan in his Easter outfit & going home outfit. So I dressed him up yesterday and we got several pictures while he was awake. He was in a good mood all day so I managed to get some good pictures of him in his Easter outfit, going home outfit, and his new turtle outfit with his new turtle blanket.
Turtles:


Going home outfit (which we forgot to dress him in when we came home):




Easter outfit:



And this picture is him posing in Vince's dad's gown that is over 70 years old. He posed so perfectly for this picture. It reminds me of an old timey photo. Isn't he just a doll?

CWP Class

On Saturday, I attended an 8 1/2 hour CWP (concealed weapons permit) class. My mother-in-law, Barbara attended, along with her sister, Peggy & two nieces, Connie & Ginger. We had a very long day. The class was all lecture up until about noon. We brought our lunch & ate it outside when we all went outside for the shooting lesson. There were a total of 15 women in the class & all the others were Mary Kay consultants. The instructors were two Greenville Sheriff's deputies.

I had never shot a gun before (unless you count Duck Hunt on the old Nintendo game system). It was a great experience. We used semi-automatic .22 guns. It was light weight and easy to use. I shot 241 out of 250 (96%). I also learned that neither of my eyes focuses well on the target so I used my right eye & then had to adjust some to the right as I was shooting slightly left of the target X. They only let 3 or 4 shoot at a time & since there were 15 women, it took 3 hours for all of us to do the shooting portion. We sat in lawn chairs and ate our packed lunches.

Ginger & I shooting.

My souvenir.

Ginger & Connie

Peggy (far left shooter) & Barbara (wearing the holster) shooting.

The test was taken after we all were done shooting. I made a 100%. I learned lots of new things, but think I could have learned it all in about 1 hour as opposed to 8 1/2. I was so ready to go home by the end of the day. I should have my CWP in the mail in about 90 days.

That is the longest time I had left Evan. I left the house at 6:45am and did not get home until after 6pm. Vince watched him all day, with Jerry's help. They did a great job as Evan slept for 7 hours straight that night (his all time record). Since then, he's back to waking up every 3 hours. I'm hoping he starts sleeping longer soon.

He's lost a lot of hair already, and not just the little rubbed off spot on the back. He's lost a lot on top of his head as well. He looks like a balding little man. The new growth of hair is coming in, but it's very short now & looks darker to me. He can also roll over if propped up on a pillow. He can roll to either side from his tummy to his back. You can see him rolling here. He grabs all his toys a lot now & really focuses on getting things to his mouth now, including his thumb and hand. I can't believe how much he's done just this week. As of today, he weighs 8 lbs 1 oz! And his newborn clothes are getting tight on him. He's now ready for 0 - 3 months clothes. My little baby is growing!

6 Weeks Old

I can't believe my baby is already 6 weeks old. This time has really flown by. 42 days already! Evan weighed 7 lbs 7 oz at his doctor's visit on Tuesday. By Thursday, on our scale at home, he was up to 7 lbs 9 oz. He eats so well every day and rarely spits up. He started out at week one barely eating 20 milliliters of formula, then by the second week, he was up to 1 ounce (30 ML). The last couple of weeks, he's been eating 2 ounces fairly consistently. This week he has started eating 3 ounces & sometimes 3.5 ounces. So his intake is getting more & more each week. I figure by 10 weeks, he'll be drinking a gallon at a time.

His routine has been great as well. He typically sleeps 3 to 4 hour stretches at night without waking up. He's had several nights where he made it 5 or 6 hours, but not very often. His wet diaper is usually what wakes him up, followed by hunger. He usually goes down around 8pm, then gets up a couple times at night, then is up for the day by 9am. He always goes right back to sleep during the nightly feedings, which is wonderful. He usually has a poopy diaper around 9:30am. He then cat naps during the day, with his longest nap being around lunch time. Sometimes it's 2 hours long or so, which helps me be able to meet folks for lunch while he's sleeping.

Having my parents here all week was so great! We went out to lunch most days & cooked dinner most nights. We have lots of left overs (yeah!). Mom got up early around 5 or 6am to help me with that feeding/diaper changing, which let me sleep in until about 7:30am every day. It was so nice to have someone else take over for a week during the early morning hours. They also got to go to his pediatrician and eye doctor with me. We had his eyes checked by an eye doctor as he had a lot of eye drainage, which caused them to glue shut a lot. However, a week ago, they stopped & cleared up. He hasn't had any drainage since then. But since we already had the appointment, we had his eyes checked. The doctor said they looked great. He checked for glaucoma, cataracts, and the retina. His vision was really good.

Yesterday, Vince watched him all day for the first time. I went to a CWP class that lasted way too long. Jerry came over to help Vince since my parents left that morning after visiting all week (I already miss them!). Vince said Evan stayed awake all day & only took a couple of quick cat naps. Each time they laid him down, he woke up. Well this trick worked! I don't know how they got him to wake up, but he slept for 7.5 hours straight last night! That is a record! I am going to try to keep him up more during the day if he'll sleep that long at night. He went through over 20 diapers for them yesterday. This boy is a diaper changing machine. He hates wet diapers & can go through 3 in 5 minutes. I have changed him & then as I button up his outfit, watch the stripe on the diaper turn blue again (it turns blue when he's wet).

Vince & I also celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary this week. We fixed ribs that night. He brought me some pretty Easter lilies. I got him a new ceiling fan for our den. We didn't go all out since we have some medical bills to pay & we just got a new TV recently. It was a nice, quiet celebration, but we definitely missed going somewhere tropical. I'm sure we'll be up to traveling again in no time. After all, we have to start introducing Evan to all the exotic places soon. The first place we started with was his nursery. He slept in his own room for the first time this week. He did great all week. We used the video/sound monitor & it worked so well. He is getting to be such a big boy!

He also turned from his back to his side for the first time in his cradle while taking a nap.

And a couple other cute pictures from this week:



He also has been so alert this week in finding his toys. He can reach for them & looks at them all the time now. It's amazing how he has changed just this week. I videoed him playing with them here.

First Easter

Easter weekend was great for Evan. His Grandmama & Papa came to visit for the week & arrived on Friday night.

His Uncle Ken & Aunt Connie came to visit on Saturday.

He also chilled out with daddy quite a bit over the weekend.

On Easter Sunday, we attended church with him for the first time. We also had quite the stash for him for Easter. DeLeigh sent a lamb blanket & Easter basket with his name embroidered on it. He also got an Easter basket, toys & books from Grandmama & Papa, and a bib, bunny and money from Granny & Papa Jerry.

He looked so sweet in his Easter outfit. He slept right through the church service.




After church, we went to City Range for their Easter prime rib. Then when we arrived home, we took a few more pictures.

Bath Time!

For the last few weeks, I've only given Evan a wash cloth bathing. We were not supposed to get him fully wet until his belly button fell off. It took his belly button forever to come all the way off. The big part came off in about a week. Then his doctor put medicine on it to make the little piece on the inside come off & it did, but then there was one more little piece left & his doctor put more medicine on it the 3rd week. Finally it all came out & his belly button can now get wet. We dug out his baby bathtub and hooded towels and got to work. This was definitely a two person job.

Evan loved his bath. He was fussy right before we put him in the water. But then he laid there and didn't fuss at all. He seemed to really like the warm water. He didn't fight us or kick either. He just relaxed right into it & let us bathe him.

Vince did the washing the first night & I did the drying.

For his second bath I did the bathing & Vince did the drying. He has some cute little hooded towels.

He doesn't so much like the drying off & getting cold part. But he really does like his bathing time. Each night he has been so relaxed afterward.