My child laughs in his sleep!

Never when he is awake, just when he is asleep. He gets these great, low laughs and that grin I love where his tongue sticks out a little. I'm sure awake laughs are coming, since smiles started in his sleep, too.

First Christmas

This is Jeff and my seventh married Christmas, but it is our first Christmas as a trio. Jude's first Christmas. At nine days short of three months, he of course, has no idea what is going on, but it was fun anyway. This morning "he" opened gifts from mommy & daddy, Aunt Ann & Uncle Joe, Great-grandma & Great-grandpa, and Grandma Linda. Respectively he received his first piggy bank (so he will understand the importance of saving earl, a sock monkey & the bouncy seat from mommy & daddy, a great blanket and a TON of clothes from Aunt Ann & Uncle Joe, a great running suit from Great-grandma & Great-grandpa, and a super cool wooden monkey toy from Africa from Grandma Linda.

Here's the photos documenting the morning:

These guys got it right

As I read this passage from Luke 2 today, it struck me that these were the first evangelists! When they realized the good news that Jesus' birth was, they couldn't contain themselves. Imagine what a risk they were taking in first century Asia to be making such lofty claims!

" 15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told."

Do we share that Good News with as much enthusiasm and conviction as the shepherds?

Salvation will always be the best gift that Jeff and I have received, but here's the next best:

In case you are wondering what his shirt says:















And here's what a 15 pound 11 week old looks like:

The Effectiveness of Prayer

God is so good! I know that He is good all the time, but I just feel it so acutely right now. Here is a video I got of Jude this afternoon. I could tell all day that people were praying for him. We didn't even have a single fussy moment today after four days of all out bawling at feeding times! We had a very sweet day together, which amazes me more because daddy was on duty today, so we were going it alone and I was preparing for a long day. Oh me of little faith:-( Of course, if I really had little faith that he would be better, I wouldn't have asked people to pray, I suppose! Or maybe faith follows the action?

Please Pray for Jude

Please pray for Jude. He has spent the most part of the last 4 afternoons screaming and screaming because at feeding times because his GER medication takes a couple of weeks to reach full effectiveness. Anyone who has met my little boy knows that this is just not his personality. He never cries unless he's hungry.

He seems to do better in the early morning, late evening, and over night feedings. But during the late morning/afternoon/early evening sometimes even being presented with the breast makes him cry. Not just cry; wail.

We see the doctor again on Tuesday. Hopefully his ear infection is gone so we only have to push one medication on him. Unfortunately, it's the one that tastes awful. I plan to ask the doctor about some things that other mothers with GER babies have suggested (I'm a member of a GER online community: momswearingpuke.com) like giving an ounce of Maalox before he nurses. There has to be something I can do to make him more comfortable. I've been giving him Tylenol a few times a day, but even that doesn't seem to help.

Thanks.

Baptism

Jude was baptized yesterday. True to Highland's form, it was not without event. First, I was nursing when Travis called us up because he always does them at the end of the sermon and I expected the sermon to be longer. Then, Travis realized he brought the adult baptism questions, so he had to run downstairs to get the parent questions. Here he is explaining that to us.















Whew! Got the questions! Hooray for the Book of Church Order!












Then, the water poured into Jude's eye. Here's the instant right before that happened. It took everything in me not to jump in and brush it off, but all Jude said was, "Eeh, eeh," and continued looking around the room.















Ready for his close up!


















Family photos:
























And, here is Jenn's little girl. We've already prearranged the marriage. Expect a wedding invitation in a couple of decades:-)











And I just loved this photo.

First Parade

Jude went to his first parade this evening - LaFayette's Christmas parade. It's nothing much. Basically every baseball team, church, or civic group in town riding trailers pulled by pick up trucks. Jeff said it was pretty "red." But we had fun. Actually, there were a couple of nicely decorated "floats" (using that term loosely. We even had a tractor-trailer from the ol' Walmart in the parade. It had Christmas lights on it.
Jude slept through the whole thing, even when the firetrucks came by running sirens and blowing their horns! Slept through the LHS marching band and ROTC. Slept through the hot rods driving by revving their engines. The minute we walked into Subway to get dinner, he woke up. Guess it was too quiet!
It was 29 degrees, so here is what he wore:




























He was the warmest one of us all to say the least!

Also, I finally got some photos of him smiling (sort of):















































Shortly after these were taken, Jeff took this photo:














Guess he had a big day!

Round Two

It appears that Jude has another ear infection (or the same one). But this time we have a reason for why he may be getting them. It turns out that he has GERD. My poor baby has acid reflux! No wonder he's been having such a difficult time nursing these days. Though you wouldn't guess it because he's up to 13lbs, 8ozs. But we think that's a little down because Jeff weighed him at over 14lbs a few days ago and he's not nursed right since the day before Thanksgiving.

So, it's round two of antibiotics and starting on an H2 blocker for the reflux. Hopefully it works. I'd like for him to start getting consistent sleep at night (because I know I want some!) and the reflux keeps him from doing so.

Do you realize that my son has gained seven pounds in less than two months?

A Song for Jude

Couldn't resist:


On the other hand, this girl has more talent in her little toe at 8 years old that I have had in my whole 29 3/4 years! But yo uhave to click on the link to go to youtube to view it because the embedding was disabled for her stuff. I guess a safety precaution since she is only 8.