June

Hi everyone. June has been a busy, busy month. For some reason or another, a lot of people decide to get married in June. Our business had 3 weddings in the month of June alone- 6th, 20th, 27th, followed by another one in Florida on July 3th.

Speaking of Florida, we had a wonderful Summer vacation mixed in with attending and taking pictures at a wedding. Our trip involved making quite a few stops in either direction:

1. Camped near Paducah, KY
2. Visited Jason in Atlanta, attended Wednesday study with him at Embry Hills
3. Drove like crazy to get to Temple Terrace, FL for the wedding rehearsal
4. Attended and took pictures at the wedding on the Florida College campus
5. Drove to Tallahassee, FL for the night
6. Saw the FL state capitol
7. Spent the 4th of July in the Destin, FL area at the beach
8. Got the Prius stuck in the sand at Gulf Islands National Seashore while trying to get to a bathroom - thankfully a guy with a truck pulled us out, and probably drove away thinking he saved some West Coast hippie ;)
9. Had dinner at Whataburger (pretty common in West Florida). Unfortunately they had the whole death of MJ thing on two TV screens, so we had to put up with that instead of watching fireworks while eating dinner.
   
10. Drove to Montgomery, AL to stay the night, had some Blue Bell ice cream :)
11. Worshiped at Elliottsville church of Christ near Birmingham
12. Worshiped with and stayed with some friends of ours in the Huntsville area. We attended at the Jones Road congregation, and though I was hoping to see some other friends there, their preacher had been my camp counselor when I was, oh, 13, so I made him feel old by sharing that fact with him.
13. Camped at Cloudland Canyon state park near Chattanooga, as well as visited Lookout Mountain and the Chattanooga Choo-Choo.
14. Visited Spring and Ryan in Henderson, TN.
15. Stayed the night in Sikeston, MO (sadly, the timing didn't work out to eat at Lamberts)

It was a busy trip with a lot of driving (close to 3,000 miles), but it was well worth it. Silas held up ok, but we did learn that he isn't really that fond of his car seat that was in the Prius. We have since switched to the nicer seat that was in the CR-V, which we thought would not fit the Prius, but it turns out that it fits just fine.

Pictures will be posted later.

Happy Baby

Here is another video. Password is Silas.

Silas in his Car Seat from Dan Watt on Vimeo.

Video

A friend of ours from church has been kind enough to let us borrow a lot of baby things, including a bouncy seat, a jumparoo, and an exersaucer. Silas really loves the exersaucer. The video is password protected - 'silas'.

Untitled from Dan Watt on Vimeo.

April and May Pictures

Click on one of the pictures to be taken to the album.

April 2009

May 2009

Sorry, Dad!

It's been a long time since our last post. We've been busy!

Silas took his first airplane trip Easter weekend. He did great! He loved all the sites and sounds in the airport. We flew to Washington DC because Dan had a business trip. Silas enjoyed being worn all around DC in his Beco carrier. He loved it so much, that he slept most of the day curled up against my chest! On Sunday, we made a little road trip over to Delaware so Silas and I could see the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. It didn't all go as planned, but we still got to see the ocean, and Silas got to feel the sand between his toes for the first time. Sorry, there are no pictures because I don't know how to post them. Maybe Dan will later!

Dan and I have been busy with our photography business, in addition to our "day jobs". We've been meeting and booking clients, taking engagement sessions, and we had our first wedding of the season on May 8. Silas enjoyed having Grandpa and Grandma Fleener watch him while we worked. I'm sure he looks forward to having them watch him for future events!

I took a girl's weekend trip with my friends Nikki and Kelli. We went to Kansas City and stayed at Kelli's parent's house. We enjoyed an *interesting* contemporary art museum, and shopping. I didn't buy anything, but it was fun to window shop. Then we went to Dave and Busters on Saturday evening. It's sort of like a cleaned up casino, except there's no gambling. You play games and win tickets to get prizes. It was lots of fun. Being away from Silas (and Dan) for two days was hard, but it was nice to get two full nights in a row of sleep! I know that Dan enjoyed having some good quality boy time with Silas. He even had Ben over (Nikki's husband) while I was gone. It was good weekend for everyone.

Here are some of Silas's new tricks:

* he is capable of scotting himself on his tummy using nothing but his legs, but it scares him, so he only scoots a few inches before he starts crying and stops doing it

* he gives kisses. He used to only kiss me, but he kissed Ella at a graduation party a couple of weeks ago. I'm a little jealous that he kisses other people now!

* he has a big voice and he loves to use it!

* within the last couple of days, he has started blowing raspberries. He does it with the paci in his mouth, and just a couple of minutes ago, he started doing it on his arm. Such a funny boy!

* I think he might be getting used to having naps. This week, he has taken at least one one hour nap per day. That's a big improvement from his ten minute power naps!


Coming Up:

Dan and I will be shooting three weddings, and possibly an engagement session, in June. The first wedding will be June 6 in Jefferson City, the others on June 20 and June 27. We're going to Florida for the 4th of July weekend to shoot the wedding of our friends Brian and Vicki. We're hoping to visit our friends Jim and Michelle Knohl in Huntsville, AL and Dan's brother Jason in Atlanta on the way.

Silas will be having surgery to correct his hypospadias and chordee on July 17. I don't have a time set yet, because I only spoke with the OR scheduler in order to get his name on the schedule. They'll tell me what time the surgery will be in his pre-op appointment, but I don't know when that will be. They call me to set all of these things up. That's the way surgeons like to do things.

Okay, I think that just about covers everything. Sorry it's been so long since the last post. Hopefully we'll do better next time!

Baseball, Washington

This past weekend Silas went to both his first baseball game ever, and his first ever Mizzou game (that is, outside of the womb). He was a very, very good baby, and he even seemed to be watching the game. College baseball, at least here at Mizzou, seems to be a lot quieter than football, but hopefully he will enjoy going out to the games this coming season.

This coming weekend the family will be going to Washington DC. On 3/27 my supervisor asked me if I would go to DC for some training at our corporate headquarters in two weeks. It was really short notice, but I called Summer up and asked if she wanted to go as well. We will be heading out Friday morning, catching a 7am flight. We will have to leave home around 3 or 4 am to get to St. Louis in time to catch the flight, so it will make for a rather interesting day. This will also be Silas' first time flying.

Summer and Silas will be coming home on Monday, and I will be hanging around for training. I come back on the 17th (my birthday), and hopefully will be picked up by my parents who will be coming down to visit for the weekend.

Photos from the baseball game will be added when the upload is complete.

3 Months

It's hard to believe it's been three months since our little Silas was born! Here's a quick list of his new tricks:

* He recently has started laughing. I usually kiss and tickle his tummy when I change his diapers. He lets out a single cackle every time. On Sunday, he started laughing in his sleep. It was very cute!

* He drools constantly and sucks on his blankets so I introduced him to his woobie today. One side is made of satin and the other side fleece. I took advantage of this as a teaching moment to teach him smooth and soft. He loved having his face stroked with each side. He's lying next to me happily sucking on his woobie right now.

* He still doesn't like tummy time, but we do it anyway. He looks like he will roll over any day now!

* He got shots last week, but he was a trooper. He looked confused after the first one, then starting crying with the second. I expected him to be fussy once the initial pain wore off, but he wasn't. He didn't have a fever either. It went much smoother than I hoped.

* We've rediscovered swaddling and it has been so helpful! He was being particularly fussy during a feeding and kept flailing his arms around. Needless to say, this interfered with his ability to eat. In desperation, I had Dan get the SwaddleMe blanket out. I swaddled him tightly and our feeding problem was history. Not only did he eat, but he sleep for two straight hours (something virtually unheard of for him). I've swaddled him tightly like that for every nap and night time since and have had an easier time getting him to sleep. I'm so happy with the SwaddleMe blanket that I've ordered two more in bigger sizes. Maybe our sleep problems will finally start to improve!