WIsconsin trip

We are having a blast visiting my mom, step-dad and sister (Kelli) for the week! Kelli took Monday and Tuesday off of work to watch Mitchell, while I lead my training downtown. She and Mitchell had lots of fun! His newest "kid trick" is waving bye-bye. It is very unpredictable though! She took him shopping with her and was facing his stroller to the mirror and he was waving "bye-bye" to the baby in the mirror. How cute :) Here is one of the cute little outfits that she bought him while they were shopping! Watch out - he's quite a ladies man :)

We've been doing LOTS of swimming! My parent's neighbors have a pool (below), so after work each day we've been taking Mitchell swimming. They have SUCH a beautiful view from the pool deck. That's the Mississippi River in the background. I think the pool is cleaner :) You can barely see us in the water there, but that's me, Mitchell, Kelli and Mark, Kel's boyfriend.

My mom took Wednesday and Thursday off to spend some time with Mitchell. She even took him into her office today to show him off to the ladies. She said he was quite a hit, smiling and waving at the ladies.

He is growing each day, but he still manages to fit in the sink for bathtime. I have a picture of myself bathing in my Grandma's sink, so I thought Mitchell needed one too.

Well - it doesn't happen often, but I was wrong (ha!). Tomorrow is August and Mitchell is still not crawling. He is still so close, pushing up on all fours, even into push up position on his toes sometimes, but he refuses to crawl. Jacob claims it's because he's saving it for him. This is the longest Jacob has gone w/o seeing him - it has been 11 days. Jacob's driving up here from Omaha tonight though to spend the weekend with us. We'll fly back to KC on Sunday, and Jacob will drive back to Omaha, yet again. Jacob thinks tomorrow is the day for crawling. We'll just have to see about that....

Here's a quick happy birthday to Jacob's dad! He turns 54 today? (Am I right, David?)

Seven months old!

Here it is - the montly chair picture. :) We actually had to take this month's pictures ONE whole day early! We left for Minneapolis on Saturday morning. I'm teaching training in Minneapolis for the week and my sister, mom and stepdad are taking turns watching Mitchell. You should've seen me bustling through the airport carrying a suitcase, carseat, stroller, purse, diaper bag, computer bag and Mitchell! He was such a good boy on the plane again. We actually sat next to a man that was a little nervous because it was his first flight ever. He was a little shocked to hear that Mitchell was somewhat of a veteran flyer :)

He is SOOOO curious these days! He is investigating everything! Here he is checking out a foxtail weed. First with his hands.....

You guessed it! And next with his mouth... He wasn't so sure about that! :)

Grandpa Dave let Mitchell try out his tractor. He enjoyed turning the steering wheel.

Puffs

I'm not sure if you can tell by my lack of posts lately, but we've been very busy! My glory days of working 30 hours a week are gone for the time being. Jacob is swamped too - in fact, he's out of town for 2 1/2 weeks! Ugh! I refuse to give up my Mitchell time, so I'm still picking him up at 4pm and then logging back on when he goes to bed. It seems to be working pretty well...except for nights like last night when he didn't go to sleep until 9:30! We both slept in a little this morning :)

We started feeding Mitchell 'puffs' that he tries to pick up with is fingers/hands. He still has what I like to call "mitten" hands. The little fingers aren't working too well individually yet. He is getting better and better though! You'll notice that Tex has all of the sudden become VERY fond of feeding time! I don't think he's too excited for Mitchell's aim to get better :)

I'm teaching a training in Minneapolis next week for work. so Mitchell and I are flying up there on Saturday and staying with my mom and stepdad for a whole week! My mom, David and Kelli are going to take turns watching Mitchell while I'm working. I think (hope) everyone is looking forward to it! It'll be a long drive from Prescott, Wisconsin (where they live) into downtown MN each day, but it'll be worth it.

Mitchell's first wedding

Our good friends from work, Paul & Eileen got married this weekend! Yet another EY couple :) The wedding was at 2pm and the reception wasn't until 7pm, so we took Mitchell with us to the actual wedding. My dad and Sherri watched him for us last night so that we could enjoy the reception.

They had the same trolley that we had for our wedding...hard to believe it's almost been THREE years since this picture was taken!


He was very well behaved during the service. He didn't cry at all, but he did "talk" some. I don't think Paul and Eileen noticed :)

All of the sudden, he is looking so much less baby-like...and is growing into a little boy!

Pics in the buff

I'm not sure if you can tell much from the pictures, but Mitchell is getting more and more hair. Yes, it's still RED! Who would've imagined? :) There are some strands growing at a quicker pace than others, so it's kind of funny looking. Jacob's solution is to pluck the long ones out - I, on the other hand, think they're kinda cute el naturale. He seems to have less and less of these long strands everyday though, so I assume Jacob's plucking them when I'm not looking :)

He is, however, NOT having less and less arm bands yet! He is still our little Michelin baby!!!

Our little chunk after bathtime...look at those love handles :) I wish you could feel how soft his little skin is through the computer!

Feeling better?

Watch the video...I'll let you be the judge.

Yes - Mitchell is slowly starting to feel MUCH better! His mouth blisters appear to be going away and he's even eating cereal, fruits and veggies again. Today, he got his first glowing report from daycare since we got back from Maine.

He is getting soooo mobile...but not quite crawling yet. He's certainly pushing up on all fours quite a bit. He can also go from laying on his tummy to sitting up - which is new for us! I would almost say with certainty that he'll be crawling before August begins. We'll see....

Jacob is back home too. Yeah! We both missed him this week!

Herpa - what?

I got another dreaded call from daycare on Monday. Mitchell was a fussy, mess! They couldn't figure out what was wrong with him and he seemed to be tugging at his ear, so they thought maybe he had an ear infection. I was in the office for all of maybe 1/2 hour and turned around to get him and take him to the doctor. I described his symptoms to the doctor and she agreed that it sounded like an ear infection, but when she looked in his ears, they looked fine. I started listing off other strange things I'd noticed including some white looking spots in his mouth (no not his new teeth! ) She opened his mouth and said "Oh my god - he's MISERABLE!" I said "Yes, but why?"

He has herpangina, which are painful blisters on the back of his throat that feel like canker sores. It usually runs its course in 3-6 days......let's hope for 3! The poor guy barely eats. I quit offering him solid food/cereal all togehter for a while. I'm doing good enough to get him to nurse. He wakes up 5-10 times per night and we've spent the last two nights sleeping in the recliner in his room together. Ugh!

Unfortunately antibiotics don't help, so the only thing to offer him is some Motrin to ease the pain.

Jacob is out of town this week (lucky guy!). The doctor said Mitchell could go back to daycare starting tomorrow, so we'll see how he's feeling in the morning. How many times he gets up tonight might be a better predictor! Wish me luck!!!!

Sweet! Peas!

We are having so much fun seeing which foods Mitchell likes/dislikes! We can only introduce one new food every four days, in order to be able to isolate any foods that he might have an allergic reaction to - luckily none so far! :) The books say to start them on veggies rather than fruits. The theory is that once they taste the sweet fruit, babies will no longer want to eat dull veggies. I did start squash first (as you may have seen on an earlier video), and then sweet potatoes...but then it was either peas or bananas....and I just couldn't resist. I just HAD to see his reaction to fruit. He did NOT like them! I should've video taped him spitting them back at me :)

Last week while we were in Maine I finally gave in and decided to give him the peas that I brought along. I hate peas...so I just knew that Mitchell would hate them too. I mean, what kind of kid likes peas and not bananas! Apparently, MY kid! :)

See the above video that we took last week of Mitchell's first taste of peas.

Now before you get too concerned about my child never enjoying a banana split (you know how much is mom loves dairy queen!), the books also say that it takes 18-30 tries for babies to get accustomed to new tastes. Sounds like a load of BS, I know, but I think it's worked with the rice cereal. He actually enjoys eating it now! Hopefully he'll "acquire" the taste for fruit.

Can you see them?????

They are small....but mighty! This was taken a few days ago, and I actually think they've even come in quite a bit more since then. He is certainly figuring out how to use them too. Those puppies are SHARP! :)

We survived the trip back from Maine yesterday. It was a LONG day! We left their house at 9:30am and got home at 7:30pm. Ugh! Mitchell was really good on both flights. Jacob flew directly to Omaha, so Mitchell and I flew by ourselves on the last leg of the flight. He was really reaching his witts end (and so was I) by the last flight, so I let him destroy a Sky Mall magazine. He had so much fun crumpling and ripping up the pages. He looked at me like...."Are you sure you're going to let me do this, mom?" That entertained him for about half of the flight and then he started to get fussy (bedtime), so I allowed him to play with the water in the drinkcup that the stewardess provided. My pants were COVERED with water when we landed...but Mitchell was happy and quiet and very entertained, so who cares!?!?!

As promised, above is a picture of the whole Folks/Flint crew….obviously, you can take a quick peak and move on….but in case you are dying to know who these beautiful people are, here is a role call:

Back row (L to R)
Connor Folks – Jacob’s youngest brother – lives in Maine
Amber Flint – Jacob’s sister in law – Chris’s wife – lives in Philadelphia
Jordan Kopf – Katy’s boyfriend – lives in Oklahoma City
Katy Folks – Jacob’s sister – lives in Oklahoma City
Yours truly
Jacob

Middle row (L to R)
Reade Flint – our nephew – son of Colby and Deana – lives in Spring Hill, Tennessee
Deana Flint – Jacob’s sister in law – Colby’s wife – lives in Spring Hill, Tennessee
Riley Flint – our nephew – younger son of Colby and Deana – lives in Spring Hill, Tennessee
Chris Flint – Jacob’s oldest brother – lives in Philadelphia
Colby Flint – Jacob’s brother – lives in Spring Hill, Tennessee

Front row (L to R)
Diane Folks – Jacob’s step-mom – lives in Maine
Greyson Flint – our nephew – son of Chris and Amber – lives in Philadelphia
David Folks – Jacob’s dad – lives in Maine
Skyler Folks – Jacob’s youngest sister – lives in Maine
Mitchell Folks – if you don't know who he is, you're on the wrong blog :)
Allie Flint – our niece – daughter of Chris and Allie – lives in Philadelphia

One last Maine picture (you can see the rest on the slideshow to the left, feel free to double click for a larger version of the slideshow). Here is a pictures of Jordan, Katy, Jacob, Mitchell and I. According to boating laws, anyone under 12 years old must wear a lifejacket at all times on a boat, so here is Mitchell in his little straightjacket, oh, I mean lifejacket. Doesn't it look uncomfortable? Both times we took him out on the water, he was asleep within minutes, so I guess he didn't mind too much!!!

Question: What does one bottom tooth say to the other bottom tooth?

Answer: Howdy, partner! Let's both come in at the same time and see how miserable we can make this kid!
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Yep - that's right. Both of Mitchell's front bottom teeth have decided to make an appearance. He is also fighting a cold - not sure whether the teething induced the cold or not - ick! He'll survive, and I think the other 16 - yes, SIXTEEN - people in the house will too :) I'll post a picture of the whole 4th of July Maine Folks/Flint crew soon.

A few Mitchell tidbits:

• If we had to assign Mitchell a rating on a 1 to 10 scale (10 being the best) for his performance on the airplane ride to Maine, Jacob and I decided we'd probably give him a 8.5 or 9.0. This is a BIG improvement from our first plane ride to Atlanta- when we would've probably given him a 4. :( After deplaning, we were waiting at the gate for our stroller. As our fellow passengers passed us by, we had quite a few comment on what a "good boy" Mitchell had been...which of course he reacted to by flashing him his heart-melting smile. :) We definitely didn't get that reaction the first time around! Ha!
• He is VERY close to waving "bye-bye" on que. It's really cute - he's got this little wrist roll thing that he likes to do. I'll try to get a video.
• We continue to work on our baby sign language. Mitchell seems to be signing milk now and then at feeding time, but he may also just be grabbing in the air. Tough to tell!
• He is ALMOST able to get up on all fours....but that big belly is making it a bit tough! I remember that Mitchell's friend Cass could only get up on all fours when he was naked - maybe we'll give that a try after bathtime tonight.
• He thinks the dog is HILARIOUS. A simple game of fetch entertains not only the dog, but is sure to illicit several belly laughs from Mitchell too.

We're having a great time in Maine! We travel home on Wednesday and return to life as normal on Thursday.

Happy Independence Day from Maine!

Mitchell had a wonderful 1st Fourth of July in Maine with the Folks/Flint family! He finally got to meet his 1st cousins and lots more aunts and uncles.



They live on the lake here in Readfield, Maine and they have lots of adirondack chairs out by the water, including this baby one :)

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Mitchell took his first boat ride yesterday. He had to wear a baby lifejacket which he wasn't so fond of, but the waves put him to sleep within minutes.

What else is Maine known for, but LOBSTERS! This is Diane's HUGE lobster pot that we used to boil our own lobsters for dinner last night. I've said multiple times that Mitchell is so cute that I could eat him....but this might be taking it a step too far :)

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth....

.....to match my NEW BOTTOM TOOTH!!!!

That's right, Mr. Mitchell has his first tooth! It's barely breaking the skin, but it's certainly there! How exciting! Maybe that is why he was so fussy this weekend?!?! I hate to blame every fit on teething, but maybe it was actually true in this case. I'll try to get a picture for you soon.

Quick update on his napping/bedtime situation - he's doing MUCH better! In fact, he's back to his old napping schedule and is going down with minimal to no fuss around 7pm again. He received a glowing report from both the babysitter on Monday night and my Dad and Sherri on Tuesday.

We're leaving for MAINE tomorrow! We're really excited for lots of reasons - fun vacation, lots of family time, no work, etc. I'm not sure if I'll post while we're gone or not, but if not, I should have lots of pictures to post upon our return!