All fours

Tom managed to get some video of Donovan up on all fours and rocking the other day. It is a little dark but still cute. Enjoy!

7 months old

"Here I am, look how big I am getting!"

"Hmmm, that paper looks appetizing."

Nom, nom, nom.

"Almost done."

"Do I have anything on my face?"


Wow, we have come so far in this past month! The biggest changes in this past month have definitely been with Donovan's physical abilities. As mentioned several weeks ago Donovan has mastered sitting and is now an expert! But he was not satisfied to just stay sitting. He is now getting up on all fours (hands and knees) and rocking back and forth. He started this about a week ago and does it with ease now. It won't be long before he is crawling, which is going to be a big wake up call to us as we haven't baby proofed a thing. Yikes!

In other news this past few weeks Donovan has been very fussy and clingy. He starts yelling if you leave the room and he can't see you, and he wants to be held the majority of the time. What happened to our sweet, happy all the time baby? I think the fussy part is due to the fact that he is realizing that he isn't as mobile as he wants to be so he is frustrated that he can't get from here to there as fast as he wants. I am hoping that the fussiness subsides when he becomes a crawler. This is a picture I took of Donovan yelling at me for not holding him.

As of a week and a half ago we are no longer doing any overnight feedings. I finally was ready to be done with them. He still wakes up overnight, but I let him cry himself back to sleep, which he seems to do in less and less time every night. So overall he now sleeps (read: stays in bed at least) from 9-9:30 until at least 6:30. If he wakes for a feeding around 6:30 he will go back down until 9ish but he generally wakes up sometime in the 8 o'clock hour and starts his day after that feeding.

For solid meals, we are still doing just two main meals a day, with a third one sprinkled in every once in a while when he acts like he needs one. He generally eats better in the evenings but he is doing better at eating well in the mornings recently. We try to get him to eat 2 tbs cereal and a whole container of fruit in the mornings, which he has been doing wonderfully at these past few days. In the evening, he eats at least 2 tbs cereal and a container of veggies and then sometimes more fruit. Last night he ate 1 tub of veggies, his 2 tbs of cereal and a whole tub of fruit! That is a lot of food! We have also introduced finger foods as of about 3 weeks ago. We give him these tiny puffs of cereal and he was not a big fan until last night. Up until last night he would pick them up, bring them to his mouth, then throw his hand over the side of the highchair and drop them overboard. Then we would try to put one in his mouth and he would clamp his mouth shut or just move around so it was hard to hit our target. At one sitting, he would at most eat 2 puffs with our help, but he definitely didn't like it and thought the texture was weird. He has only successfully eaten 2 puffs that he got in his mouth on his own. Last night we had a breakthrough. I would put a puff in his mouth, he would chew it and eat it and then open his mouth for more. This has NEVER happened before! He ended up eating about 15 puffs last night so I think the persistence has paid off! I am interested to see if he likes them again today or last night was just a freak occurrence.

One last thing worth mentioning that you may have noticed from the first group of pictures in this post is that Donovan is a big fan of paper products for playing and eating purposes. That being said, he LOVES getting the mail, as it is like a trip to the toy isle for him. He just rips and chews magazines, paper, pamphlets to his little heart's desire. I figure if he actually swallows a little piece it is just a little fiber to help things move along.

A few weeks ago a friend of our family had her Bat Mitzvah and we were lucky enough to be invited to attend. My parents came in town for the event and here are some pictures of us looking nice and dressed up.



Donovan also got his first shoulder ride from Grandpa during the weekend they were in town. He loved it!


Poor Donovan. I bought him some jeans and I wanted to try them on him to make sure I got the right size. Well apparently I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been when I put them on because after they were all the way up, I realized that they were so tight because I had both legs in one of the pant leg. Silly mama. At least we know he would make a cute mermaid (merman).


Oh there's that other leg of the pants. We will try to use that one too next time we wear them :)


Overall this past month has been a very fun month to watch Donovan grow. I just hope he takes it easy on us this next month since it will probably be our last month of relative calm before the mobility storm!

Bath Time in the New Tub!

Here's a short video of Donovan splish-splashing in his new inflatable tub with all of his frineds!

Baby Baldknobber

Several years ago Tom and I took a short vacation to Branson MO and had a great time! I have such fond memories of going there as a kid and I cannot wait to go back and spend some more time there with Donovan. Anyone that has been to Branson knows that there are lots of shows down there, and many of them include characters known as "baldknobbers". Basically they are hillbillies with no teeth that "mash" their face up as Tom says, so they look even more hillbilly then they normally would. Tom and I got such a kick out of all of the billboards with baldknobbers on them on the drive to Branson and then all of the commercials you see down there with a gummy hillbilly looking man. So the term "baldknobber" is thrown around in this house very often. Now Donovan does not close his mouth often, but when he does we laugh and think that he looks like he is auditioning for the role of baby baldknobber. Until today we have been unable to capture it on film but during breakfast this morning our luck changed! Last night and this morning Donovan has been spending a fair amount of time sucking on him bottom lip, thus creating the perfect baldknobber look. Behold!




And my absolute favorite...

It's even cuter in person.

Our little sitter

Donovan has discovered a new skill, sitting! As I have posted in the past, Donovan has been a great sitter on your lap but when you put him on the floor, he would immediately throw himself back so he could be on his back, which would then allow him to roll where he wanted to go. He just had no interest in sitting. My dad said he had a "round butt" when we would try to make him sit on the floor. Donovan stayed pretty firm on his "no sitting" stance until Thursday Oct 29th when he decided that this sitting wasn't all that bad after all. It was almost overnight that he went from no sitting by himself, to sitting pretty well by himself. Now he is practically a pro! The first picture I attached is from Nov 3rd and that was probably the last day I felt it necessary to put a pillow behind him for fall cushioning purposes. For about a week now we just put him in the sitting position and are able to walk away and leave him sitting there by himself without fear of him crashing and burning. He sits for a long time, up to 25 min at a time sometimes, before he gets bored and decides to do some rolling. It was really fun watching him learn how to throw his arms out to catch his balance when he was just starting to sit on his own and now, he reaches for toys and flaps his arms all around and still keeps centered. He is getting so big! And as an added bonus, since he has mastered sitting unaided, we have moved up to the inflatable bath tub. The first time we used it he was a little unsure if he was going to like it, so he fussed until all the water was out and I was going to pick him up, and then he loved it! Since then he has had 3 more baths and loved each one. This last time we took some pictures. He just gummed his toys and splashed and had a big ole' time! Oh yeah and one more perk of sitting, today Donovan graduated to sitting in the shopping cart when we went grocery shopping together. I don't have a picture of that unfortunately (well, other than on my cell phone I should say) but trust me when I say we both enjoyed it very much. He was very well behaved and entertained himself with his toys and looking at all of the groceries and I enjoyed not having a backache after carrying him around the store strapped onto my chest. Enjoy the pics!

First picture I took of him sitting really well.


Happy Blues fan sitting like a big boy on Nov 8th.



Enjoying his new bath. Man that octopus tastes good!


This picture cracks me up because you can't tell but he is holding the octopus in his mouth and reaching for more toys to eat.


This picture is for my parents, see... Donovan does close his mouth on occasion.


Splish, splashing!


He loves his bath!

Let's go Blues, Let's go!

Austin friends

This past weekend some very good friends of ours came in town for a wedding. Tyler and Olivia live in Texas, so anytime we get to see them it is a special treat. Their two kiddo's stayed in Kansas City with their grandparents, so Donovan got all of Tyler and Olivia's attention. We were also very lucky because Tyler and Olivia are very talented photographers (see their website for proof http://www.tylerschmitt.com/ ) and they took some pictures of Donovan, Tom and I. They are still working on touching them up, but we are very excited to see the finished product. Until then, here are some non-professionally taken pictures from their (too-short) visit.

Tyler and Olivia holding Mr. Donovan.


Tyler and Donovan looking at the handsome men in the mirror.


Rough-housing time.


Donovan loving it.


We miss you guys already!

Halloween eve

Donovan had a very big day the day before Halloween. It started with a long overdue playdate with Landon. The boys were so cute together and look like they could be related, both blondies with big blue eyes. These playdates are going to keep getting better and better as they get older. Landon showed Donovan his impressive sitting skills and two teeth, and Donovan showed off his rolling skills and ability to create a tear after crying for only 3.2 seconds. I think they were both equally impressed with eachother's skills.

Landon was hanging out on his tummy and Donovan decided to come visit and rolled right over in Landon's face. I guess babies don't really have any concept of personal space.



Then we tried to get some pictures of them sitting together on the couch but that just turned into wrestle-mania. At one point Landon was elbowing Donovan in the face and Donovan just laughed. Boys.

Sitting nicely with our hands to ourselves on the recliner.


After our very exciting visit with Landon, Donovan rested up for his big party that night. Our neighbors had a Halloween party so we all got dressed up and headed over at about 7:30. Here is our little chicken before the party.


And here is our "chicken little" 30 minutes into the party.

As you can see, Donovan thought that he needed to squeeze in a little snooze while we were distracted. So daddy decided to join him.

Eventually Donovan woke up and enjoyed the rest of the party. We managed to snap this picture of all three of us before we left the party. I was a chicken farmer if you needed a hint.

All in all, a great day!