Busy Weekend

We went to John and Tahereh's wedding on Saturday (Tahereh is Roya's sister). It was at The Melrose Hotel in Dallas. It was a beautiful ceremony with both Catholic and Persian traditions. Sam was teething and had a little cold this weekend so we were a little concerned about taking him with us considering that the wedding started at 8:00 p.m., but we didn't have a baby sitter. Sam slept through the ceremony, but woke up when everyone clapped. You've got to wonder what he thought when he fell asleep in the dark in a moving truck and woke up in a room full of people clapping.



Chris brought the camera so we could take a few candids at the reception. He was trying to stay out of the way of the wedding photographer, so he didn't get many shots of the couple together. This was the only shot with both of their eyes open, facing the camera, and neither one of them making a face, but it is out of focus! We had to post of picture of them though. Tahereh was beautiful and the dress was gorgeous.



Tahereh's mom got a belly dancer for the reception as a surprise. She was great and a lot of fun. Sam enjoyed the music as I danced around with him. He was awake until around 11:00 p.m. Yeah, I know, bad Mommy and Daddy. Roya said there must be a little Persian in him since he was so happy to be up so late. He was fascinated by everyone and everything. One thing in particular that caught his eye was the centerpiece with candles. He watched the fire for a long time. Roya's family hadn't seen him since he was two weeks old, so they were glad to see him too.



We met Brad and Jennifer at Haggard Park in downtown Plano on Sunday. Chris was going to take a family portrait for them. Unfortunately the temperature dropped before we got there and it started raining shortly after. Then both Sam and Jackson got a little cranky. Jennifer said late afternoon may be the best time of day for light, but it isn't the best time of day for little ones! Hopefully we'll get to try again soon on a nice sunny day. There are a lot of great parks around town which make for some great pictures.



We gave Sam bananas this weekend. They were a BIG hit. He still doesn't really seem to like the sweet potatoes, so I mixed them with bananas. He loved that!

Just a little update on Sam in general as he approaches 6 months old this Friday (yikes!) ... Sam is getting a lot bigger. He weighs about 16.5 lbs now. He moved up to size 3 diapers a few weeks ago. He's moving up to the 6 to 9 months clothes. He's starting to try to sit up. He can sit up on his own when he's in his little bouncer seat. He can't stay up very long when he's on the floor though. We keep practicing, so he's almost there. He's not trying to crawl yet, but he does a good job of spinning around on his tummy and rolling over. He's still squealing a lot, as opposed to babbling. The doctor said he'd be making ba-ba, da-da type sounds by six months, but it looks like he's satisfied with just squealing and laughing. He seems to be left-handed. He grabs and hits everything with that hand. He's sleeping in his pack-n-play now, so he's out of our bed which makes us sleep easier. He's a tummy sleeper just like me -- refuses to sleep on his back. He's also sleeping a little better at night again, only waking up twice now. He's been teething again for about a week. I think those top front teeth might cut through by Thanksgiving!

-- Emily

Adventures in Eating

We started introducing Sam to more "solid" food over the last few weeks. He never really fell in love with the rice cereal, so we wanted to add stage 1 fruits and veggies. Chris wanted to start with applesauce, so we bought a few jars of that. We went by the book store after we bought the applesauce because I wanted a few tips on introducing babies to food. The first book I picked up said to start with vegetables. When I told Chris, he told me to keep looking at books until I found one that said to start with fruit. I laughed, but it only took two more books to find one that agreed with him! We're mixing rice cereal into his applesauce because it's a good source of iron and zinc. It also thickens it up a little bit, so we can actually keep it on the spoon.



As you can see from the pictures above, we've also tried sweet potatoes. I wish I could say that Sam loves this stuff, but he doesn't! He makes the funniest face when I put the first spoonful in his mouth. I only get a few spoonfuls in before he starts turning his head. I think he eats better for the ladies at day care. He's also hungrier in the middle of the day. Bananas are next on the list. Maybe they'll be his favorite. They sure are Cleo's favorite! Maybe we should take a vote for the next veggie.

There are a few different theories on this subject:

1. start with vegetables so the baby doesn't develop a sweet tooth and reject vegetables later
2. start with fruits so the baby likes it and gets used to eating from a spoon faster
3. start with yellow foods, then orange, then green (this advice comes in different orders with no real reason why)
   

The options for stage 1 foods are applesauce, bananas, pears, peaches, prunes, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, peas, and green beans. We can also try other single grain cereals, like oatmeal and barley. You are supposed to wait from 3 days to a week after introducing a food to try a new one to watch for any sensitivities. Then when he can sit up on his own, it's time to switch to stage 2 foods.

I'm thinking, "Oh fun -- a new food." Sam is thinking, "Oh no! A new food!"



We're still feeding him out of his bouncer. He can't sit up on his own yet so he doesn't really need a high chair. The new high chairs actually have different reclining positions, but I'm not ready for another piece of furniture in the house yet! How can something so small need so much big stuff?



Here's a shot of Sam on a mat in our bedroom. We've taken to putting down little mat areas in each room of the house. We have wood floors in every room which will come in handy when he's ready to stack blocks and race cars, but it isn't so great for a wee one still on his tummy.

One more bit of news ... believe it or not, we all had a stomach virus again this weekend. Sam was sick Thursday/Friday, Chris was sick Saturday, and I was sick Sunday. Chris bought disinfectant wipes to wipe down the whole house. Chris says if we get sick one more time, he's hopping in a plastic bubble. Our doctor says that's just what we have to expect with a baby in day care. Great!

-- Emily

Halloween at the Dallas Arboretum

We had a wonderful day on Saturday at the Dallas Arboretum. The plan was to take pictures of Sam in his pumpkin costume in the pumpkin patch. I wish I could say that we were packed the night before and got up early so we could spend the whole day there. But, anyone that knows us knows that didn't happen! We left the house around 2:45 p.m. so we didn't get there until around 3:15 p.m. And, we had to feed Sam when we got there. The Arboretum closes at 5:00 p.m. so we felt a little rushed.



This is Daddy and Sam posing together when we first arrived at the Arboretum. I thought they were really cute and matchy with their hats - too bad Sam didn't have his shades too. I think Sam spends most of his time with Daddy in the Baby Bjorn carrier on the weekends. They both love it! (Thank you Aunt Sharon)

Seems like everyone else in Dallas had the same idea, so the pumpkin patch was crowded. We tried to find a spot where we could prop Sam up (he isn't sitting yet) and where we could get a shot without other people in it. It was a beautiful day with a high in the low 70s, but it seemed extremely hot in that pumpkin patch, especially with this big fleece pumpkin costume on him.



This is the best shot that we got of Sam in his pumpkin costume. Chris says the more you want a particular shot the less likely it is to come out. I'm not sure if that's just Murphy's law or what. It's still a cute picture, but we felt rushed and pressured and I'm sure Sam picked up on that.

After we got our pumpkin picture we changed Sam into a cooler outfit. Chris gave me grief because I packed too many outfits for our photo shoot, oh I mean fun family outing, but this was the last thing that I packed. I thought it was going to be cooler outside for some reason, so everything else was too hot for him to wear. We had Sam's stroller loaded down with camera gear and outfits. We had no intention of actually putting him in it!



This is a shot of Mommy and Sam playing together after we went to the petting zoo. They had bunnies, chicken, sheep, goats, and a pony. Sam didn't actually pet any of the animals. We just looked at them. We couldn't tell what he thought of them. He gets more excited when he sees Cleo.



As we were leaving the pumpkin patch, we found a spot with a lot more color which was more interesting. Sam was in a great mood, so we decided to take a few more shots. He was giving us lots of great smiles. We got lots of great pictures there. Everyone was coming up and telling us what a happy baby he was.



Chris saw this bench around this tree and decided that he wanted to take a few shots of Sam and Mommy playing together. Sam thought it would be fun to bite, I mean kiss, Mommy.



I had seen a really neat spot on our way to the pumpkin patch. It was a little nook with two giant pumpkins (giant = taller than Sam). I thought it would be neat to get a picture with Sam standing in between the two pumpkins. It looked like someone else had the same idea because they were in that spot. We decided to wait for them to finish. Their baby was throwing a screaming fit so we looked for something fun to do in the meantime.



This is a shot of Daddy and Sam playing. It's Daddy's mission in life to make Sam laugh. Sam loves it. Chris picked up Sam at day care one day last week. The next day one of the teachers told me she used to think Sam looked like me until she saw Chris, now forget about it.



As we are still waiting around for this "great spot," I realized that Sam probably hasn't ever really seen or noticed flowers, so I took him over to look at these mums. He thought they were very interesting. At first he was kinda just petting them. Then he started grabbing them. He was shaking all over; he was so excited. Then he started going crazy and petals started flying in all directions! If you look close in the picture below, you can see some of the petals flying.



Still waiting for this magical spot to free up ... I realize that I've been trying to either get Sam to sit up or stand up for all of the pictures. I thought we should take a picture of him laying down. That's the stage that he's at currently and he'll probably never want to take pictures like that again, so it only makes since, right? He ended up pulling out blades of grass - I don't think he'd ever really noticed grass before either.



We took 351 pictures total. I picked out 37 favorites for our iPhoto album, but only posted 11 here. I think we may have an obsession!

At this point, you may be wondering where is this photo with the two big pumpkins ... well, two things: 1) remember what Chris said about wanting a particular shot too much and 2) we got tired of waiting any way so we didn't really get to test that theory. It really made me mad because they weren't even using the scenery around them. They could have just as easily taken the shots that they were taking in their backyard. They had a black furry blanket laying on the walkway and had the baby laying on that. They had her in a Tootsie Roll outfit with said candy all around her. Then another shot of her in a cheerleader outfit with pom pons and a megaphone. I would guess she was about two months old. I don't think she stopped screaming the whole time either. Ok, that's off my chest, rant's over.

Sam was exhausted and slept all the way to the new Sushi restaurant near our house. We fed him when we got there. Then the waitresses offered to watch him while we ate. They had a blast and Sam loved the attention. I don't think they wanted him to leave. They said he was such a good baby, and we could bring him any time. Sam is starting to grab anything and everything in reach, so it was wonderful to be able to relax and sit back and enjoy the night. Oh yeah, the sushi was great, too!

We just had so much fun Saturday! It was the first weekend in about five or six weeks that we were all healthy and the weather was beautiful. I wish we could order up a few more of those. If you have a chance, check out the Dallas Arboretum's web page. They had a really neat tree house exhibit too. We would love to go back and spend more time checking out the tree houses.

-- Emily

Halloween Carnival

We went to the carnival at Sam's day care Friday night. Brad and Jennifer's son Jackson goes to the same day care so we met them at a new BBQ place and went to the carnival together. Sam went as a pumpkin and Jackson went as the Incredible Hulk. The carnival didn't start until 7pm so we were taking a risk with two little ones. We basically made a quick loop and said hello to all of their teachers before they both were ready to go to bed. If you look really close, you can see Sam's two bottom front teeth.





I took Sam to his follow-up doctor appointment on Friday afternoon. Dr. Smith gave him a clean bill of health. She was so happy to see that he was feeling better. Sam has been doing great this week. He's gone from waking up 4 to 5 times a night to only 2 times. Hopefully he'll go back to once a night, or maybe even sleep all night! His cold is gone, his diaper rash is gone, and his stomach is back to normal. We are all healthy now and very happy to be feeling better! Here is a picture of Sam "walking."



-- Emily

Birthdays

We just wanted to say "Happy Birthday" to a few family members ...

October 18th - Sam turned 5 months old!
October 19th - Happy Birthday, Grandpa Stanley!
October 20th - Welcome to the world, cousin Charlie Maxwell Parr!

We've had a really rough week. Sam cut two teeth last weekend. Daddy had a stomach bug. Then, Sam's cold got worse, his ear infection came back, and it looks like he picked up a little stomach bug too. So, needless to say, there's been a lot of sleepless nights in the Conner house lately. It's hard to say if Sam had a stomach virus on top of the cold, or if his little body didn't like all the medicine we were putting in it. There is the antibiotic Augmentin twice a day for the ear infection, Pulmicort which has to be inhaled through a nebulizer twice a day, Tylenol for the pain and fever, and Benadryl to try to dry up his runny nose. You might ask, why all the medicine for just a cold and an ear infection ... well, Sam's had a cold of one sort or another going on six weeks now. We're trying to knock it out. Of course, the antibiotics ended up giving him really bad diaper rash. We now know that Desitin has the highest concentration of zinc oxide as compared to all the rest. His little bum is still red, but at least it's not hurting him any more.



Sam woke up feeling better today. He was back to his smiling, laughing, squealing self. He spent a lot of the day sleeping though. He has a lot of that to catch up on. It was a beautiful day, so we decided to take a walk. Poor Cleo doesn't get many of those any more. It was a little chilly, so we put a hat and blanket on Sam. He enjoyed getting out, but he fell asleep about halfway home.

I finally got a chance to import the rest of the movie footage that we took last weekend. Hopefully we can take some more this week now that I have the hang of importing it and posting it. By the way, once you click on the first video (Bath1), you can just click "Next" at the top right of that page to go to the next video ... or you can launch each video from the links below.

Bath1
Bath2
HappyBaby
PlayMat
Daddy
Mommy

--Emily