Santa 2015

I know it's not quite Thanksgiving yet, but Santa was in town on Sunday for a store's Christmas Open House, so we loaded up and saw the big guy for a picture.

Bo was SUPER excited. He carried one of his Lego minifigures and went right up to Santa to show him and said, "I want more of these and all different kinds of Legos". Ha!

Arabelle and Mae were pretty hesitant. Arabelle was up there about a second to take a picture, but her eyes were closed in it. She had gotten her candy and was back beside us before I could try again. :)

Mae was shy, but participated for the candy. She was definitely leaning away from him!

Zeke looked very closely at him, before looking at me for the picture. This was his first time wearing one of his Christmas bibs Aunt Kay made and he got several compliments. :)

I was glad to get a good picture of all 4 with Santa and that this is DONE for the season. :)

Just a reminder of what Mae thought of Santa last year. Ha! 

Go Dawgs!

The day after our zoo trip, Jared took Arabelle and Bo up to Athens for the Georgia vs Georgia Southern game. The kids were SO excited! Arabelle woke up at 6:30 and she's usually our late sleeper. They were out the door by 8:30.

Go Dawgs!

Jared said they were really excited pre-game and were dancing to the music and waving their pom-poms around like crazy. :)

Unfortunately, the game didn't start until 7pm, but they stayed until half time and got home just after midnight and the Dawgs pulled out the win (barely).

I'm so glad they got a day with Jared to experience something they all enjoy!

Jacksonville Zoo Field Trip

Friday we spent the day at the Jacksonville Zoo! We met up with 4 other homeschool families through out the day, but with many different kids and interests, we ended up being on our own most of the day. If you would have told me before we went that I'd be alone with the kids at the zoo, then I probably wouldn't have gone. Ha! But it actually went incredibly smooth and I'd definitely do it again!

We left around 7:30, Zeke took a little nap on the way, and we were there just a bit before 10.

I ended up ordering a monkey "backpack harness" for Mae. It was pretty much a leash, but they don't call them leashes anymore. Ha! She wore it for me when we were in the parking lot until we got to the animals. Zeke rode in the stroller and napped once in the baby carrier while we were there. Mae was glad to ride in the stroller when Zeke napped. 

They loved this alligator snapping turtle.

Mae loved the zoo map and I couldn't figure it out to save my life, so she got to use it as long as she wanted.

This was the black bear....he was digging a hole, so we didn't see much of him, but Mae was pretty excited and gave a good bear growl for us. :)

 Giraffes:

Serious snack break:

We had to ride the carousel.

They were so excited about every single animal. They also really liked that the signs told what each animal ate.

Zeke was a dream baby!!

Arabelle was such a big help. She pushed the stroller some when Mae wanted to be held or when Zeke was sleeping in the baby carrier.

Arabelle had been to the zoo twice before. Once just before Bo was born (she was almost 2) and again when she was 3.5. She's grown a lot since then! :)

We ended up finding some of the kids' friends at the play area and playing awhile. We left Jacksonville around 3:30. Both little ones were TIRED, so they slept right away. We stopped in Waycross to feed Zeke (and let the kids play on Chick-fil-a's playground) and grabbed some food for the ride home. Needless to say, we were all so tired! 

It was such a fun day and I'm so glad we went! 

Zeke is 6 months old!

Zeke is 6 months old! He has changed so much in the last month and learned a lot of new tricks.

• I don't know how much Zeke weighs. His 6 mo check up is next week. I am guessing around 18 lbs? He's definitely growing well and has some chunky thighs! I just put away his 6 mo footie PJs and have him in the 9 mo ones. He's in a size 3 diaper still. 
• He is such an active boy! He loves to jump and learned to sit himself up from laying down and can go from sitting back to his belly without flopping over. He also started crawling some a few days before 6 months. Now at 6 mo 2 days he is going pretty far to get what he wants! Here is a video of Zeke crawling.  And here he is playing outside a couple of weeks ago during Arabelle's piano lesson. 

• Zeke is a pretty serious and focused baby at times. When he's in the bath, he plays with this yellow cup and I can hardly get him to take his eyes off it. And he is pretty unhappy when it's time to get out and drop the cup. :) Mae bathed in the tub with him one day and she enjoyed it. 

•  Zeke is mostly sleeping well at night. Most of the time he is sleeping from bedtime (8ish) to 4-5 am, nursing, then sleeping until 7-7:30. Sometimes he will wake  earlier in the night and again in the early morning, but thankfully that's rare! 
• Naps are hit or miss. Once he learned to sit himself up, he did that in the crib and didn't want to nap. We worked through it and he's back to napping better. His morning awake time is around 2h 15min, then napping 45-90 minutes. His second awake time is around 2h 30-45min and he will *usually* take a good 1.5-2h nap. If he doesn't get a good second nap, he will take a short 3rd nap in the evening. Bedtime is around 8 if he gets a 3rd nap and 7ish if he doesn't. He almost always goes to bed without a peep.
• He's nursing in the morning, after his naps, at bedtime and when he wakes at night. He is finally starting to spit up less!  

• Zeke has the sweetest little personality. He loves to smile and stick his tongue out when he is spoken too and he just laughs and laughs at Bo when he acts silly.
• I'm planning on starting solids with him soon. Maybe next week.

• The monthly pictures are a little more interesting now.....

• Zeke rides in the car just fine now. He will take a short nap if it's nap time. We haven't done any long trips though. ;)
• Zeke has been in the swing outside a few times, but he doesn't really LOVE it. Here's Mae pushing Zeke in the swing. 

• Zeke is still doing really well in the playpen for independent play time. He will stay for 15-20 minutes 2-3 times a day. There's always a cute little face waiting for me to come get him! 

 All 4 at 6 mo old!

Zeke from 1-6 months old.