11 weeks old...

Hey, here's an interesting fact -- Deacon is 11 weeks old today, on 1/11/11.  That's pretty cool, right?  Anyways, it's so hard to believe that this much time has passed...he's growing so much and really entertaining us.  :)

He smiles on demand now -- he will almost always smile at me or Jeff when we play with him or talk to him.  He really likes it when folks talk to him and will seemingly try to talk back.  His gurgling and cooing is SO.cute.

[7 weeks]

[8 weeks]

[9 weeks]

We get to see a lot of that laughing and "talking" in the morning -- he seems the happiest then.  Typically, I try to get him up by 7am to eat, if he's not already awake.  Then he spends some time with Daddy in our bed while I get a shower, have my coffee, start laundry, etc.  He generally eats every 3 hours after that with good awake time and naps in between. 

[happy guy in his crib, 9 weeks]

He LOVES the swing that we borrowed from our good friends, the Olds'.  That is our "go-to" -- if he's fussy, we can usually put him in that and he's good to go.  :)  He falls asleep in it most of the time and will sleep really good.

We also have a bouncy seat that he'll sit in for a little while -- after some time passes, he gets tired of that.  I do try to put him on his tummy for a little bit but he usually gets tired of that real quick.  If he's gonna be on his tummy, it has to be right after he's eaten.  If we wait too long, he's starting to fade into sleepiness and then he has NO patience for being on his tummy.

[9.5 weeks]

His 2 month check up at the pediatrician's office was Dec 30.  He weighed in at 11 lbs, 13 oz!  That's in the 63rd percentile for weight so he's pretty average.  His length measured at 22 1/4 inches which puts him in the 54th percentile.  Again, average.  I'm just fine with that.  :)

He had to have a couple of vaccines at this appt. *frowny face*  He got one stick and one oral vaccine and did fine with both.  He only cried for a couple of seconds after the stick in his leg and then was just fine.  Mommy had a harder time with it than Deacon did.  :)  Yeah, he didn't have any kind of side effects or anything for the rest of the day, either.  He's my tough little guy.

[my little guy's bandaid, 9 weeks]

I went back to work last week. *extreme frowny face*  My heart's desire since I was a little girl has been to stay home with my kids, just like my mom did for us.  I desperately wanted that to work out but it just isn't our reality right now.  However, God did the next best thing for me -- He worked it out so that 1) I'm able to work from home Thursdays & Fridays and 2) a good friend, who is a wonderful mommy to her 2 young boys, is able to keep Deacon for us in her home Mon-Wed while I'm in the office.

The transition back to work went SO much better than I could've ever hoped for!  I actually have not cried once since going back to work (though, I've gotten slightly emotional just once) and Deacon has done fantastically at Krystal's house.  I was so busy while at the office last week that I didn't have time to be sad (though I thought about Deacon a lot :) and then being home with him Thursday & Friday was great.  AND I was able to get everything done for work.  Best of both worlds!

We really couldn't ask for more from Krystal -- she used to teach before she made the decision to stay home with her boys so she's wonderful with kids, no matter their age.  And she says she's already grown to love Deacon just like one of her own.  :)  She gives us a "report card" each day when I pick up Deacon so we can see what he's been up to throughout the day.  What a sweet momento if I have to be away from him!

It's really just the perfect scenario -- I know that my God worked all that out.  It helps this Mommy's heart.

[10 weeks]

[10.5 weeks]

[11 weeks]

Deacon's 1st Christmas...

We celebrated Deacon's first Christmas at my Mom & Dad's house in Lexington.  It was there that my brother, sister-in-law and niece finally got to meet him, as well as my grandparents, Deacon's great-grandparents.

Our 4-hour trip to my parents' house went well -- we stopped 2 hours in to feed the kid and change his diaper. He did good with that.  When we weren't stopped, he pretty much snoozed the whole way.

Deacon did great away from home -- my parents set up a pack-n-play in my Dad's office and he slept just fine in there at night.  For naps, he slept wherever we were.  My mom was stocked with diapers & wipes so we didn't have to bring any with us.  We packed enough clothes that we didn't have to do laundry so that was good.  I wasn't sure how I was going to do with the whole packing-for-a-baby thing but I guess it turned out okay.  :)

Even only 2 months in, Deacon seems to be a pretty laid back kid so he really just rolled with whatever came down the pike over the weekend.  So grateful for that -- he gets that from his Daddy and that's what I prayed & prayed for!  :)

It was a special weekend and the numerous photos that were taken tell the story pretty well:

[my jolly boy says, "Merry Christmas!"]

[Deacon & his Grammy, my mom]

[Deacon & his great-grandmother, my Gram]

[Deacon & his great-grandfather, my Buppa]

[Cora Beth meeting her cousin for the first time...]

[...and she loves him :) ]

[Deacon with his Aunt Brandi]

[helping Aunt Lindsay give out the presents]

[stopping to check on Deacon :) ]

[Cora Beth's fave gift -- a HANDMADE-by-my-Buppa rocking horse]

[all the kiddos]

[such a sweet little helper :) ]

[cousins]

[it was a white Christmas with 3-4 inches of snow!]

[my brother, his girl and their snowman :) ]

[2 months old]

**For more photos of our weekend, click here.**

7 weeks already!

Deacon is now 7 weeks old.  He's growing so fast and changing so much, though I can still see my little newborn munchkin when I look at him.  :)

We are enjoying him so much. We take random photos of him ALL the time, we love and kiss on him ALL the time, we talk to him and try to make him smile (we've both been able to do that a time or two by now and it just thrills us to no end -- I wish you could've seen Jeff's face the first time he was able to make him smile. :).

He's growing so much, gaining weight as he should and feeling heavier each time we pick him up.  We think he's probably up to 11 lbs by now.  He's filling out his clothes and has actually grown out of his short-sleeve newborn size onesies (at 5 weeks ). He's also in size 1 diapers now. Not that the newborn diapers don't fit anymore, but more so that they don't hold what he fills them with. If you know what I mean. *eyebrows raised* Yeah.

Ahem -- but going back to the smiling thing...he really started smiling "on demand", if you will, around 5 weeks old.  The smiles were sparse but we saw them when we'd talk to him, etc.  Then the next week, at about 6 weeks, he really started smiling and sort of laughing/gurgling at me when I would put him on the changing table to change his diaper.  He seems to be his happiest in the mornings after he's eaten and it just melts my ever-lovin' heart to see him smile and laugh at me.  He's cute anyway, but when he breaks into those grins -- YA'LL.  He.is.DANG.cute.  :)

We had a parent/child dedication on Sunday, Dec 12, at our church and we participated as a family in that special ceremony.  They called us up on stage with about 10 other families (5 of which were friends of ours :) and gave us a sweet dedication certificate and a little New Testament Bible for Deacon.  Then our children's pastor gave a charge to the parents and read from Deuteronomy --

You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land... 11:18-21 (ESV)

Amen.

He prayed for all the parents, that God would give them wisdom and knowledge to raise their children in all His ways and that their chidlren would never remember a day that they didn't love the Lord.

Amen, I said.

Deacon did wonderfully through the ceremony, sleeping mostly through the whole thing.  That was just fine with us.  :)  And he looked adorable in his little vest and corduroy pants with his little shoes & socks!  Our sweet friend, Stephanie took photos for us so we'd have them to remember this special day in the life of our little family.  Thanks so much, Steph!

We got our first family Christmas card mailed out just a few days ago.  We had a friend in our neighborhood come up and take some family photos for us.  I was going to try to set the self-timer on our camera just like I usually do for our Christmas card photo, but with an infant, you kinda just need to snap away in hopes that one of them will look okay.  My brilliant husband pointed that out to me.  Duh.

Anyways, Alissa did a great job getting some good shots for us.  She is due with her first child, a girl, in April, so she enjoyed holding Deacon after the "photoshoot".  Thanks, Alissa!

Here's what we ended up with:

As I stated above, we take random photos of Deacon ALL the time so here are some sweet shots for you to enjoy:

[5.5 weeks]

[Daddy already has safety glasses for his boy]

[we caught another smile!]

[6 weeks]

[love his facial expressions...]

[this is the photo we used at the parent/child dedication]

[Daddy is so good at giving him a bath]

[6.5 weeks]

[7 weeks]

one month...

We have a one month old, ya'll. 

How?  Tell me, where has the time gone??  Everyone told me that it would go by so fast and I figured that to be true, but it blows me away that our child has been with us for over a month now...

We gave Deacon his first bottle at 25 days old.  Jeff has been ready to feed Deacon himself and I've wanted to let him but didn't want to risk any confusion with breastfeeding so we waited.  It turns out that Deacon has his Daddy's temperament -- he's pretty easy going.  :)  He switches between breast & bottle with no trouble at all.  We're not feeding him formula -- just breastmilk that I'm able to pump and store in the refrigerator or freezer, depending on when we need it.  It's been so nice having this option for times when we're out and about and especially for when we're at church.

[25 days old, with his first bottle of breastmilk]

Deacon met his Wenzel grandparents for the first time at 4 weeks old.  Jeff's mom & dad (aka Grandpa Duane and Grandma Sherry) flew in from IL for the week of Thanksgiving.  We picked them up from the Wilmington airport and Sherry barely had him in her arms before the waterworks started.  :)  She was so excited to finally meet Deacon.  We had been skyping with them since he was born so she said she felt like she already knew him but she couldn't wait to get her hands on him.  It was love at first sight, to be sure.  Duane was pretty excited to meet him, too.  :)

[4 weeks old, with Grandpa Duane & Grandma Sherry]

Deacon's first Thanksgiving was spent in our home with his Wenzel grandparents.  Sherry and I cooked the meal together, which wasn't anything fancy but it was yummy.  Jeff carved his first turkey.  It was a quiet day for us all, different from Thanksgivings in the past, but it was nice nonetheless.

There isn't anything really Thanksgiving-y about our photo.  It's just one that we took of the 3 of us to commemorate Deacon's first Thanksgiving.  I've heard people talk about how hard it is to get a family photo to turn out well with kids -- I guess that starts pretty early...

This is the best one we got out of 4-5 attempts:

The rest of these photos are random ones we took in Deacon's 4th week of life and the few days after, leading up to one month:

Don't you love little baby feet & hands??

[22 days old]

[27 days old]

[1 month old]

[27 days old]

[4 weeks old]

[27 days old]

[4 weeks old]

[1 month old]