Loving Some Summer Time

Sorry these are in a bit of a random order, but here's some of what we've been up to now that summer weather has *somewhat* arrived.

Jace has been gradually losing his hair--some to rubbing, but mostly to cradle cap (each flake of scalp took all the hair from that spot with it). It was so sad to see his wonderful hair go, and pretty soon the comb-over wasn't very cute anymore, so it was time for a major haircut. Check out the before pics...

This picture shows his lack of hair in the front and crazy wave in the back.

This one perfectly captures the craziness. Add a little spit up to the mix and it gets even better!

After he got his first buzz! You can also kind of see his TWO bottom teeth. They came in within 5 days of each other.

We decided to walk to the Linn County Fair on a beautiful day. Jace was great at wearing a hat and kept it on the whole time!

Daddy and Jace on the walk.

Having fun hanging out while Mommy and Daddy enjoy some fair food.

All worn out before heading home.

Our friends, Amy and Ken were visiting from Paris and had to meet Jace and Elliana, who are 2 days apart in age.

All bundled up for fireworks on the 4th of July. We had friends over for a barbecue and then went to Independence for the show. Jace was mesmerized by the first half, and then slept for the rest.

Food and Fury

I've been planning all along on making baby food for Jace and tried my hand at it for the first time last week with green beans. Jace loved them (but I have a feeling he's going to like anything I give him, he's so obsessed with food!). I'll be introducing one food a week, so today I bought sweet potatoes, pears and bananas to get ahead on making food for him. Thanks to my wonderful food steamer (Christmas gift from my friend, Mary, last year) and my amazing food processor (thanks to my Mom last year), baby food it super easy to make! I think I went a little overboard on sweet potatoes (as seen above). I'll know better next time how much to buy! I spent a total of $12.61 (oh if only I had a Winco or Super Walmart in town, it could have been less). I figured out in the end that with how much I made and how much I would have spent to buy that same amount at Target, I saved at least $31.04! It could be more... I still have a lot of sweet potatoes to freeze, and I'm just estimating how much it will make. I feel a fun sense of accomplishment each time I get some food out of the freezer and watch Jace devour it.

And now for the fury...
Jace has always been verbal, but he's seemed to discover his sounds in a new way these past few days. Yesterday he found out how fun it is to make the "da" sound, and loved using his high pitched voice as well! Nolan managed to get some video of it by using his phone (Jace recognizes all our other cameras and stops whatever he's doing to stare). This video is 3 minutes long, and he'd been doing the exact same thing for several minutes before and after it!

Untitled from Nolan Nelson on Vimeo.

A little more cuteness

Just a little Jace update: when I took him to the doctor last week about his spit up problem, he'd gained 10 ounces from the month before, and I finally measured him today. The kid is 28 inches long now, which means he has grown TWO inches in one month! No wonder all his pants were looking short on him. Yay for finally having summer heat so shorts and onesies are his daily wear!

One of his front bottom teeth is about to break through (it may have broken through today, but he hasn't been very cooperative in letting me get a good feel/look at it today) and the other is right behind it. Yesterday his nose and mouth wouldn't stop running, and today it's lessened quite a bit, so it wouldn't surprise me if the tooth came through.

His reflux medicine is helping quite a bit! We still have a few spit ups here and there, but he can actually go the entire time between meals without a real spit up here and there! We see the biggest evidence of how well the medicine is working when we forget to give it to him and are reminded how much he spit up before. Hopefully we'll get the referral to the GI specialist soon so we can see if there might be a stronger reflux medicine he can take (while the spit up is less, he does still have quite a few huge projectiles).

As I said in the previous post, Jace and Cami are pretty big fans of each other. Last night while she was holding him, Cami was singing his name to him, "Jacers, Jacers, Jacers..." Of course she stopped singing when I got the camera out, but I was still able to get some of their cute interaction. Enjoy!

Cami and Jace from Nolan Nelson on Vimeo.

Cute Cousins

For the first time since Jace was born, we had all three Steiner kiddos spend the night. Anna's mom dropped them off at my office and we headed home in the 95 degree heat. Jace, who was so tired his eyes were bright red, couldn't fall asleep in the car because his cousins were too fun to watch, so I heard, "I want Jace to look at me..." and "Jace is looking at Josiah, I want him to look at me..." the whole way home. When we got to our house, Jace went down for a much needed nap and the kids and I got out the slip and slide. It was fun to see how much they've changed since our slip and slide adventures last year: Josiah knew how to do it correctly from the start and didn't need to yell in order to be successful, Micah has mastered tummy sliding, and Cami wasn't afraid to get wet.





Jace woke up not long after we went back in, and Cami loved having cuddle time with him. I can't believe how close they are in size already (obviously Jace is still much smaller, but he'll catch up quickly). I can't count how many times Cami said, "I hold Jacers," or "I carry Jacers." I think she wishes he'd stay tiny forever. In the morning I had Jace and Cami on our bed while I got ready, and they both were laughing so hard when she decided to play peek-a-boo (without any prompting from me) by covering him with his blanket and then pulling it off of him. I think they'll be great friends!



Jace loves sucking on his toes, and once he did it, Cami decided to do it too.

I laid Jace down on his blanket, and as soon as Cami joined him, Toby came over and laid right next to Jace's head. I'm not sure if that was him claiming Jace as his, or trying to protect Jace from Cami.

Micah had fun playing with Jace and the exersaucer. Jace LOVED having his cousins entertain him. Josiah played with Jace too, I just didn't get any pictures of it.

Five Months Old!

Jace is five months old! He's quite the busy boy--if he's not wiggling and talking, he's sleeping, and even then he wiggles while he sleeps! Jace will do a complete 360 degree turn in his crib throughout the night (I have fun watching him through our video monitor). He can roll from his back to his tummy and tummy to back, but would rather just lay on his back or side, playing with toys (and talking or yelling at his toys). He's known about his feet for over a month now, but just finally realized they're fun to play with. He lights up when either Nolan or I come into his sight and is always quick to give us a smile. He brings us so much joy. He has been spitting up more than we thought was normal for even a spitty baby, and it began to be projectile as well, so we took him to the doctor this week. She gave us a prescription for a reflux medicine (which seems to be helping somewhat, but he still spits up quite a bit), and referred us at GI specialist in Portland. We'll see what happens... But enough of the details, now for a peak at that adorable face!

I made Jace a onesie for the 4th of July and had to do his 5 month pictures in it :)



He's staring at Daddy in this picture. I love the look on his face.

Enjoying some time in the bumbo seat while waiting for friends to come over on the 4th. He almost always has at least one finger in his mouth, and has recently discovered how much he loves his thumb (mostly to chew on, not really into sucking his thumb yet).

The other day he was sitting in the bumbo and leaned over to look at the blanket when he realized how great the bumbo is to suck on (he does the same thing in his exersaucer). This picture also shows how much he's lost his hair. He had cradle cap for a while, and every chunk of skin that came off took the hair with it. He has to awkward bald spots on the sides, and it's thinning in the middles. I'm sad to see this hair go.

Enjoying a beautiful evening outside.

Showing off how much he likes his feet.