3 months!

Ahh!  I can't believe my little baby is already 3 months old!  He's no longer considered a newborn... crazy.  I guess all that really means is that now we're supposed to be encouraging good habits.  (At least that's what the books say!  No more "spoiling"!  Apparently habits stick from here on out--the good and the bad!)  So, we've been well on our way to trying to establish a good sleep, wake and eating routine.  So far, so good.

We've moved William out of his bassinet and into his big crib.  To me, his crib mattress still seems way too hard to be comfortable, but William made the adjustment way better than I did.  Of course :)

We've also stopped swaddling him, since he's now strong enough to wiggle out of it anyway.  (I swear, the kid never stops kicking!)  Plus, he loves sleeping with his hands up :)

And we've now moved on to a more fun and entertaining wake time!  He's so interactive, smiley and funny!  It's such a blast.

We play in the jumpy (even though I'm still way too small)...

We watch the ILLINI... 

We watch Mom & Pawn cook...

We practice standing...

Look! No hands!

We chill in the bumbo...

We hang out with Pawn...

We do some tummy time...

(while mom tries out cool new photo features on her ipad...)

(sorry, again, about the middle finger!)

We work on sitting...

(which isn't always so successful...)

We make funny faces...

We giggle...

Basically, we spend a lot of time just being cute...

But naturally, all of that fun awake time leads to being pretty exhausted!

Uh oh... he sleeps like his mom!

 It's getting pretty hot over here, so that means naked nap time!

Man, I could kiss that face all day!

The only time these feet are still is when he's sleeping :)

And last but not least, we took a few family pics today for our annual report letter.  I won't post the one we're gonna use (that would ruin the surprise), but here are a few random fun ones!

Where's my smiley baby???

William refused to smile the entire photo shoot, so we tried to pull out all the tricks...

A glimpse of the days to come... wiping William's face off and him saying, "Moooooom! Stop it!"

Letting William take a break...

Hmm.. still no smile.

Better luck next time.  :)

Learning flexibility

So, the day after I posted about our "plan to have no plan", William slept through the night!  Go figure. Since then, I can tentatively say that he sleeps for 8 hours straight! Or at least has the ability to.  (I'm still somewhat hesitant to say it out loud, afraid that it'll somehow jinx the good thing we've got going here...)  He sometimes still wakes up at 5 am and needs a paci to suck on for a few hours, but hey, I'm not complaining!  And really, I feel like he sleeps even longer than 8 hours since we put him to bed around 8:30 and he sleeps like a log til 11.  Then Steven wakes him up and feeds him a bottle and then he's back down right away.  Nice, huh?  I stressed myself out in the early weeks trying to get him on a schedule and develop good habits.  So, I'm not sure if he's doing well now because of that or if he's just a good natured baby.  Probably both?  The nature vs. nurture debate continues...

Either way... we're doing great!  I finally feel back to "normal", Steven's back to work and William is thriving.  Having Steven's family here the past month was a huge blessing.  It forced me to be out and about with William and pushed me to do things with him that I normally wouldn't.  We took day long road trips, ate out almost every night, left him with Pawn for the day, etc.  And William was such a trooper.  He hardly fussed, slept well, ate well and smiled tons.  So proud and thankful for my flexible baby boy.

Love this picture so much.  Mom & Dad Sauder are such amazing grandparents! William loved being spoiled by their love and attention for 2 weeks.  (He's already getting bored with mom and dad now that they've left!)

Grandpa Sauder (it's weird to call him that!) bought William his first motorcycle at the furniture market!

Love my mornings with him.  Such a happy baby after all that sleep!

Hey mom.  I'm cute.

 Just hanging out on dad

 All ready for church!

We all wanted to go to the pool, so we took William and put him behind our lawn chairs to shield him from the sun.  He fell asleep in his car seat and let us enjoy the beautiful afternoon.

He loves his changing pad for some reason 

Sticking his tongue out at me :)

 Had to get a pic with him eating with chopsticks :)

He throws up a lot.  Usually on daddy :)

 As of lately, William's been taking showers with daddy!  He still gets put his in "poop bucket" first though!

Watching his first rainfall with Grandpa 

& Grandma!

 Steven couldn't wait until William could touch the floor by himself, so he gave William a little help :)

Still confused about what to do in there...

But lookin cute nonetheless!

Love this photo.  Steven put William in the corner of the couch one morning cuz he had to get some work done.

I feel like William's expression says it all.  "Nobody puts baby in the corner."

Again, Steven hooked up a jumper to his office door so he could see William "jump" while he works.  This kid is gonna jump whether he likes it or not!

The end.