A Few of My Favorite Things...

Halloween!!!!!

Binkies

(Three fisting it. Sawyer's got a little problem....)

Salad seasoning....

Sesame seeds....

Sweet basil...

Getting busted!!!!!

Mmmmmmmmmm...spices!!

Vikings Football

My DAD and Vikings Football

My own reflection (I look so cool!)

We apologize to all of Sawyer's loyal fans, we know its been a while since our last post. Let's just say we've been busy keeping up with Sawyer. He is definitely ON THE MOVE!! (As you can see in the pics above.) He's been "creeping" for a few weeks now and he "creeps" quite rapidly I might add. "Creeping" is the term used by pediatricians. I prefer to call it the "mortally-wounded-guy-in-a-horror-flick" crawl because he drags himself along using primarily his arms with some minor toe action to bring up the rear. It looks painful and agonizing. On the hard wood floor his little hands make a "slap-slap" noise as he grunts and groans and pulls his giant body along behind him. I keep telling him to use his knees, but its of no use.

Actually, Sawyer is already working on "Plan B" to creeping - walking. He pulls up on everything and has started taking steps both forward and backward as well as side to side. Occasionally he gets brave (or maybe just tired) and decides to let go. Look Ma, no hands!! Yeah, that doesn't usually end well. John and I are getting pretty good at catching him. It's amazing how quickly he masters one skill after another. You can watch him work on the same skill over and over again until he finally gets it.

Diaper changing and dressing has become a major feat. Sawyer immediately starts rolling over, twisting and contorting his body the minute you lay him on the changing cart. (John says it's similar to how an owl moves...body one way, head another.) We stash several new toys or interesting items on the changing cart hoping that one of them will keep his attention long enough to at least get his diaper on. Each item only last about two uses and then we have to find something even more novel then the last. It's exhausting. You know you're losing control when you're dangling a toy from your mouth so as to entertain your child while simultaneously applying butt cream with one hand and fastening his diaper with the other. As for dressing, we've learned how to dress him in either a sitting, standing, creeping or any position in between.

As for stats...I've lost track on some of these, but here goes nothing.

• Age: 8 months old on November 7th.
• Teeth: he has 6 (4 top, 2 bottom) and he bites. (Me mostly, sometimes John, occasionally the dog)
• Weight: really heavy. (I think he was 22 or 23 pounds a few weeks ago when I weighed him on our bathroom scale. )
• Height: not sure but we've had to move his shoulder straps up once already in his new big boy car seat. (He outgrew the infant carseat a couple months ago!) In fact, the law says we can't put his big boy carseat forward facing until he's 1 year old. His poor legs are so scrunched up now he has to sit like a frog. I don't know how we'll make it 4 more months!
• Verbal skills: "ppbbffffff", "nana nana", "hey" and various screeches and squeals
• Physical skills: creeping (mortally-wounded-guy-in-a-horror-flick-crawl), pulling up, pulling up and cruising, gets to sitting position from laying/creeping position, rolls both ways rapidly

More Family Visits and a Camping Trip!

Sawyer and his cousin Charity

Sawyer and his cousin Kirsten

My brother, Roy, and his family

Grandma Jill and her grandsons

Three generations of Wellhouses

Sawyer protecting his "jewels" from the great outdoors

"Are you coming in? The water's fine!"

Saw-Dawg definitely dug camping

We've had lots of visitors here in the past month. My brother, Roy, and his family came to visit in early August. Sawyer had a great time visiting with his uncle and cousins from Missouri for the first time. John's Mom came to visit for a week near the end of August. He really enjoyed reconnecting with his Grandma Jill too.

Sawyer continues to grow and change quite rapidly. He's sitting up now although still a bit wobbly and is working diligently at lifting his entire body off the floor when laying on his tummy. He grunts and groans when attempting these little "push-ups". So far he's mastered lifting his upper half and lower half independently. Getting them both up in unison is the next big feat. (And then we'll be in trouble because crawling comes shortly thereafter!)

Sawyer is finally catching on to the eating thing. (We thought he was going to be a permanent milk baby there for a while.) He's mastered cereal and has moved on to apples, peas, and bananas. He opens his mouth up like a baby bird and chirps for more. He also makes little "mmmmmmm" sounds as he eats. Too cute.

We went camping at Falls Lake over the Labor Day holiday with our friends Natalie, Dane and baby Lydia. (Teresa, John and Miss Grace joined us for dinners as well.) Sawyer seemed to enjoy the great outdoors. He loves to be outside so napping, eating and playing outside for two days solid was an ideal vacation for him! The lake level was quite low so he splashed around naked in a baby pool we brought with us. (Not to mention I wasn't too keen on plunking a 6month old into a somewhat polluted and, thanks to the drought, highly concentrated body of water.) John and I both came away from the trip wanting to camp again soon. (Maybe to the mountains this fall?) We also both came away with ticks! Luckily, Sawyer didn't have any creepy crawly stow-aways.

At his 5 month check up Sawyer weighed 18.8lbs and was 27 inches long. He is in the 90th percentile for both weight and length. Yikes!

Time Flies

Big boy Sawyer stuffing, or rather "tucking", a spoon in his face. Like father, like son!

Mmmmmm, nummy, nummy. Now if we could only get some of this stuff to go down instead of OUT!

"Lady, what are you trying to do to me? I only have two teeth!"

Natalie, Dane and baby Lydia (Good friends of ours turned proud parents!)

Baby Man Miles says, "Wait! No more pictures please."

Miles and Michelle (More good friends made proud parents! Don't drink the water...)

Miles and his SUPER excited Dad!

"Bad boys, bad boys.....whatcha gonna goo"

Whooooooosssshhhhh! That was the sound of seventeen weeks zipping by! It seems almost like a dream. Seventeen wonderful weeks gone and I awaken sitting at my desk sleep deprived and swamped in work as if nothing ever happened. Amazing.

I returned to work on July 5th. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Given the fact that up until that day the mere mention of going back to work would literally bring me to tears, it honestly couldn't be worse then I had imagined. (Gotta love anxiety, nothing makes reality sweeter!)

The day didn't exactly start out right. I was up at 5am. I was showered and dressed by 6:00am. Sawyer was fed, dressed and playing quietly on his activity mat by 7am. His very big bag was packed and ready to go to Grandma's complete with every toy he owned (seriously), 10 diapers, several changes of clothes (just in case), my baby journal, a cooler with bottles of milk, a thermometer, a monitor, baby shampoo/powder/lotion, every medicinal product he's old enough to consume...you get the point. John had the car seat in his car - he was going to drop Sawyer off at Grandma's and I was going to pick him up. Everything was going according to plan...until my car wouldn't start. The last time I unloaded my car I hadn't closed the hatchback door well enough and the battery was dead. To top it off I quickly learned that we are probably one of only a few households that doesn't own a single set of jumper cables. Great. Luckily, Grandpa Wayne had a charger so he and Grandma Heide hurried over and helped us out. If I were superstitious I probably would have seen all this as some sort of sign that I should just stay with my baby boy, but alas I'm not and so my seventeen week dream ended with me waking up at work.

Sawyer has changed so much in the past month. When he was just 4 months old two little teeth popped out! We suspected he was teething, but geeez...two teeth already!

A few weeks later we started trying him on a little rice cereal. He is definitely interested. He even tries to bring the spoon to his mouth himself. Such a big boy. Now if I could just figure out how to get more of the cereal in his mouth instead of on his chin!

Sawyer is very good at using his hands. He can take his pacifier in and out. It's cute to watch as he takes it out and turns it round and round studying it as if to say, "Genius, really, pure genius". Grandma Heide has taught him how to hold his bottle all by himself. (Well, he can't help with the chores yet so the least he can do is feed himself!) She's also taught him how to push himself around in his walker although only under very close supervision, of course. Sawyer is quite the chatterbox too. He screams, squeals, babbles and will hum along occasionally when I sing to him.

At his 5 months check up he weighed 18.8lbs and is 27 1/4 inches long. Poor baby received 4 more shots and was fussy for 5 days. He also had big red welts and knots in his muscle at the injection site, ouch!

Hello South Dakota (and Minnesota too)!!

Uncle Ryan and the Saw-Dawg (Such a handsome pair!)

Sawyer's baptism with Pastor Dave (the Bishop elect!)

Sawyer as a little White Sox. Grandpa can dream can't he?

Grandma Wellhouse and Sawyer bonding over dinner. (The way to his heart is definitely through his stomach!)

The Miller (Trent, Krista & Elyse) and Wellhouse Families

Four generations!

Great Grandma Alberta and Sawyer playing a little game of footsy

The Wellhouse family all decked out for Carl Osberg's wedding. (We clean up pretty good!)

Kisses for Sawyer. Who can resist a man in a tux!

Carl and John @ the wedding (Nice package, Carl)

The newest member of the Chippendale's after a long night of partying hard. (He lost his pants due to the warm weather in Minneapolis)

Well, we had a whirl wind tour of Pierre, SD and Minneapolis, MN. On June 16th, we flew to Pierre and spent 5 wonderful days enjoying small town life. Pierre is such a quant and cozy town. John and I reveled in the fact that it only takes 5 minutes to get ANYWHERE. We visited with family & friends, had Sawyer baptised, took in a movie, played in the park and relaxed on a pontoon ride up the Missouri River. An ideal vacation for a young family.

Sawyer amazed us with his many new firsts while we were traveling. He began blowing bubbles and razzing. (This is a very important milestone since it is the precursor to making good fart noises as a little boy.) Sawyer also started sticking out his tongue, which is another vital skill for all little boys to master. By the end of the trip he was giggling and rolling over from tummy to back. He's growing up so fast! We were only gone a week!

On our way home from Pierre we stopped in Minneapolis for the weekend to attend a wedding. John's childhood friend, Carl Osberg, was getting married. The wedding went off without a hitch and we had a good time at the reception that followed. Sawyer was a hit in his little baby tuxedo. He flirted and smiled with all the single women. (Had they thrown the garter I believe he would have caught it!)

Sawyer stats at the time of our trip: 14-15weeks old, ~16.5 pounds and at least 26 to 26.5 inches long.

Wisconsin, SAY CHEESE!

My cousin's son, Max, enjoying some good ole Wisconsin CHEESE!

Sawyer with his Great Aunt Cheryl and Grandma Heide

Sawyer with his Great Grandma Norma

"I'm telling you, these people are CRAZY!"

In early June, Sawyer took his first plane ride to the great state of Wisconsin to visit the Milbauer side of the family. Despite the mad chaos getting through security with an infant; everything went suprisingly well. (Try stuffing a stroller, a car seat, a diaper bag and a 3month old through one of those x-ray machines all the while trying to keep track of your shoes and boarding pass...geez!)

Sawyer was really good on the plane. (Many thanks to Grandma Heide who came along and was amazing at calming the occasional little beast within...) Neither the changes in air pressure or the mild turbulence seemed to phase him. The other passengers on the plane appeared more then a little relieved at his good behavior.

We had a great time visiting with all the family and Sawyer genuinely seemed to enjoy the many new faces. It was a good time and we were very sad to go. : (

Summer, Summer, Summertime

Is there a baby underneath all that gear?!

(Gotta keep the sun off that baby skin...)

Toe dipping

Sawyer tries to take his shirt off

Chillin' with Dad and doing the baby backstroke

Sawyer and Cousin Cole make a splash

This was Sawyer's first outing to the pool. The conditions were perfect for the little man's first swim; the water was 86 degrees and the outside temperature was 90 degrees. He certainly seemed to enjoy himself; kicking and splashing like a pro. He's getting proficient at the back stroke and enjoyed pushing off the wall with his legs. After a nice swim he laid out by the pool (in the shade, of course) and relaxed in the nude. (Nothing clears up diaper rash like a little fresh air on the bum.) What a life!

Friends and Flowers

Ms. Kaemi and Sawyer

Ms. Natalie and Sawyer

(What a cuddle bug!)

Scott, Jessica and Sawyer

Renee, Sawyer, Me and Anna

(Sawyer and Anna will make a cute couple some day!)

Auntie Renee and Sawyer at the farm

Renee, Anna (in the backpack checking out the water below) and I at Duke Gardens

The happy family!

Sawyer stops to smell the roses

As you have all probably noticed, we've been very busy with visits from friends. Thanks to everyone who has come to see us, we love the company! We had a wonderful week long visit with my best friend Renee and her adorable daughter Anna. It was fun to see what we have to look forward to in another 6 months (crawling, eating, babbling, screaming). We can hardly wait!

Sawyer will be 3 months old on Wednesday. He's holding his head up almost constantly although it still gets a little heavy now and again. He is starting to sit up with a little assistance, push up on his arms while laying on his belly, swat at hanging toys with his hands and is even starting to discover his feet. At his 10 week check up he weighed 14lbs 9oz and was 25 3/4 inches long! (He's grown over 3 inches since birth!)

A few other milestones (for me anyway) were our first trips to the grocery store, the farmer's market, a department store and Duke Gardens. Every outing brought new lessons in motherhood. An infant car seat can be balanced on a shopping cart, but must be removed prior to check out; jog strollers are not good for winding through the farmer's market, but are an excellent choice for off-roading through gardens; be prepared to stop and nurse a fussy baby in the most inconvenient places and at the most inconvenient times; garden benches make good changing tables; it is next to impossible to keep all sun off a baby so just do the best you can; and never ever leave the house without a pacifier.