Pictures from Christmas

Tom and Dono waiting for Jenna to finish making breakfast so we could open our presents.

All the presents under the tree. Front view, then back view.


Donovan's favorite part of unwrapping. The bows.

What is better than one bow? Two bows!

Dono checking out his new Lion scooter thingy. His favorite part of the Lion? Eating his hair. (It's fleece and at the very top of the Lion's head incase you were wondering what I am talking about)

"Thanks Grandma and Grandpa B! I love it!"

Donovan watching his daddy play his present- his grandfather's refurbished guitar.

Testing out the Lion with Auntie Jenna's help.

Family picture in our sleepers. Tom and I both got these this year specifically for Christmas morning. I slept in mine but Tom wimped out claiming he would be "too hot". Grinch.


We tried to get a picture of Donovan sitting nicely infront of Tom's parent's tree. This was the best we could get.

Donovan and his Great Grandma Q and his Great Aunt Pat.

This one I just posted because his face cracks me up.

On Christmas night, on several occasions, Donovan would rest his head on his hand just like this for a few seconds. I snapped the picture right before he was changing position so I could have gotten a better one but you get the idea. It is so cute!

These two are from the day after Christmas. Donovan's favorite toy is this play table that his Uncle Nick bought him. He loves crawling over to it, pulling himself up on it and slapping all the buttons that make sounds. I love his face in the second picture, it sums up how much he loves the table perfectly!

Our favorite present

We had a wonderful Christmas. Donovan was well behaved and liked all his toys, and even more exciting, let us sleep in until 8am! No 5 or 6 am feedings! What a lovely boy. And even better, he seems to have finally gotten over his cold. My sister spent the night Christmas eve so we all got up when Donovan did and started our Christmas morning. My sister made an egg casserole and then we opened up presents while it cooked. I think this should be a new tradition. Present opening went smoothly and Donovan's favorite part by far were the bows we put on his larger presents. He thought the bow was the present. Remind me of that when we have our next child. Right about the time we woke up it began to snow! So we were lucky enough to have Donovan's first Christmas be a white Christmas. The one bummer about this Christmas was that my parents weren't able to be here with us. Sad. But they were at home safe, so if they couldn't be with us, at least they were not driving here in the bad weather. Next year will be different hopefully.

Christmas eve we hosted my dad's side of the family for our Christmas celebration. Donovan was a little on the crabby side, but I think he was mostly overwhelmed. He was so excited for the present opening, that as soon as we started he decided to poop out of his diaper. Lovely. Oh well, the life of a baby. After a quick outfit change and clean up, Donovan spent the rest of the present opening time crawling from person to person and trying to eat their ribbon &/or bows. He was so exhausted that he went to sleep at 8pm that night. A full hour earlier then most nights.

After Christmas morning at our house, Tom, Donovan and I bundled up and headed to Tom's parents house so we could do our gift exchange and spend time with them. Donovan was much less crabby that day so that was nice. We exchanged gifts, then visited with Tom's grandma, his Aunt Pat and her friend Margaret (who is pretty much an "honorary" aunt). During dinner Donovan tried his first taste of Cheerios. We are not big cereal eaters so we have yet to buy him some but he loved them so we will be making that purchase soon.

My favorite part of the whole day was back at our house though. We headed home early Christmas evening to unwind and let Donovan try to have somewhat of a normal night after all the excitement of the last 24 hours. Tom and I were trying to unpack and organize all our goodies and Donovan was just crawling around. We would look at him occasionally to make sure he was not doing anything he shouldn't be, but for the most part he was roaming around, exploring without us hovering over him. Well at some point he was crawling into the kitchen and I looked down and he looked like this.


It was just the sweetest thing. I asked Tom if he put that on Donovan's back and he said that he did not. So in crawling around, he somehow got the bow squarely in the middle of his back, sticky side down, just as if someone had placed it there. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it now because I felt like God placed it there to remind us what is most important in life. Donovan is the best present that we have ever been given. He is such a vibrant, fun kid and I feel so blessed that we get to be his parents. A healthy, happy child is such a blessing and I never want to take that for granted. So when I saw him crawling around with the bow on his back I was like "That is right. You are my favorite present".

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

8 months old

Donovan doing his impression of a monkey.


Happy belated 8 month birthday to the Dom-bin man! This past month of Donovan's life was a very exciting one. He went from just a little mobile, to full out speed crawling. It is nice in most ways as he is happier now that he can get where he wants to go. It is not nice in that where he wants to go, is often somewhere we do not want him (in a pile of electrical cords, dog food/water bowls...). So we have had to baby proof the house, but it is a hard thing to do with such a curious baby. Now that he has mastered crawling, he has started pulling up on things. Mostly people and our ottoman. It is so sweet when he crawls over to you and climbs up on you and pulls himself into your arms. There is nothing better. Here are some shots of him pulling himself up on the ottoman.





In other news, we are pretty much done breastfeeding. I have mixed feelings about this but I know it is time. Donovan was not getting enough milk from me anymore and he is too busy to spend so much time eating. When he breastfeeds it usually takes about 20 minutes. Meanwhile he can slam a 7 oz bottle in 3 minutes if he is so inclined. He also likes to look around when he eats and that is a lot easier to do when he has a bottle in his mouth that we can follow his head around with. The past few days I have only been doing the morning feeding and he does not seem to mind so we might continue to do that one until he gets to busy for it and then I will be completely done breastfeeding. I wish I could have done it a little longer, but I am proud that we made it 8 months.

Most of the other new stuff I talked about in the last update since I knew I would probably be preoccupied with Christmas stuff when he turned 8 months old. So for any other news, read that previous post.

These following are some cute pictures that Tom took last week. Donovan has found some of Petey's toys that Petey has barely touched and has claimed them as his own. One was a ball that Petey got a few Christmases ago. Well, actually he got two, one said "naughty" and one said "nice". Guess which one Donovan chose to chew on. Is he trying to tell us something?

Crazy hair night

This is what Donovan looks like after daddy gives him a bath. Ok, really it was just this once and Tom did not brush his hair on purpose but it is still silly.

Lately

Donovan has been quite the mover and shaker nowadays. Now that he can crawl, he has decided that he needs to explore everywhere and taste everything. (I mean everything- air vents, rugs, electrical cords, shoes, dog food, etc.) And man is he fast! I will be making something in the kitchen and he is on his blanket, then 20 seconds later I hear him in the dining room and then another 20 seconds goes by and he is by the front door. To anyone who has not been to our house, it is a pretty long way. I would say a quarter mile in baby length. Also, for those of you that have been to our house, you maybe thinking "The front door is right next to the basement stairs, please tell me you are not letting that child crawl around unsupervised around the stairs." Well rest assured people (mom and dad) we have installed a very sturdy gate at the top of the stairs so we are definitely breathing easier now.

Now that he is such an expert crawler he has set his sights much higher. He is now pulling up all over the place. His favorite things to pull himself up on are our ottoman and his mommy and daddy. He thinks that we are there for his playing entertainment. We are to be used as his ladder, trampoline, chair, it varies really, whatever he is feeling at the moment. Ever since he began crawling he has been back to his happy self. The 2 plus weeks of crabby Donovan was just when he wanted to be crawling but wasn't quite there yet. Happy Donovan is 1,000 times more fun than crabby Donovan so I hope that happy Donovan is here to stay.

On a health note poor Donovan has a cold. He had his first official cold a little more than a month ago. It consisted of a little bit of sneezing and a lot of snot but thankfully not much else. However, it lingered FOREVER! It lasted 2 and a half weeks. Then one day it was gone and he was better. Then the next day I heard some congestion, the next day more and the day after that, BAM! Worse cold. So we were cold free for one day then walloped with a worse one. That one really hit hard this past Monday so we are now 5 days into it and there is no sign of it going away any time soon. I am hoping that is goes away before Christmas, but I am not holding my breath, that is for sure. This time there is just a little bit of sneezing, but a ton of congestion and nasty snot. He does not act like it bothers him, that is until you have to wipe his nose. Then he screams and thrashes around like he is being murdered. I fear that if I wipe his nose in public, someone might call child services on me for child abuse strictly as a result of hearing his reaction. And poor baby has such a red nose and red cheeks from all the wiping and snot. I have been putting Vaseline on his checks, nose and above his lip for the last few nights before he goes to bed and it seems to be helping a little.

To end this post on a good note Donovan is also quite the giggler lately. He loves to be bounced, spun, thrown in the air, and pretend dropped. Anything dare devilish, he loves and laughs, laughs, laughs. We love it!

Oh and here are some pictures of what Donovan has been doing lately...
Playing with doggy toys. In his defense, they do look a lot like his toys.


And playing (and attempting to sample) Petey's food.


Since this picture was taken we have relocated Petey's food and water to a more secure location. Donovan found that location today. Dang.

Little rocker dude and his parents

We Have A Crawler!

This past Saturday our little man finally figured out how to move his arms and legs at the same time to get from here to there! He's crawling! Since he's discovered how to get himself around he's been much happier and mom and dad have been much more tired. Don't let this video fool you, he really only cares about things that are not his toys, i.e. the air registers, shoes and his very favorite, Petey's food.

I (tom) got a new digital video camera from my parents for my birthday so there are many more videos of our special little boy to come!

Teething biscut

Donovan: "Mmmm, these are good."
Mom: "Wow, those are messy."