6 months...1/2 a year! I can't believe it.

My title pretty much sums it up - Micah is 1/2 year already. Time is just flying by, and this was a very big month for Micah developmentally. I love everything about being a parent, and each month brings it's own exciting new surprises. The biggest highlight from this month? Probably the fact that he finally figured out how to roll over completely. Now the fun really begins, right?

Six month doctor stats: 18 pounds (61% for weight), 26 1/8 inches (only grew 1/8 inch in 2 months?!? how is that possible?; 50% for height), 18 centimeter circumference (93% for head - that's our boy! staying strong on the large noggin, ha:)).

Things to remember:

• how you took your first trip to Chicago to visit Daddy at work via train and bus (1st on both!)
• how you learned how to sit unsupported
• how you love to laugh when either mom or dad carries you up the stairs, and the other follows behind - for whatever reason you think that is HILARIOUS!!
• how you learned to sleep on your tummy
• how you learned to FINALLY roll over from belly to back, and when combined with the back to belly you learned last month, you are finally rolling over...yay!
• how you started eating veggies and fruits (only tried green beans, bananas and squash - and you love your squash:))
• how you still love to analyze your hands, treating them like they are new every day you look at them
• how you love to communicate in your own Micah-language, sometimes seeming so mad, other times growling, while other times completely laughing

I love you too, Micah

Thanksgiving Blessings

We have many things to be thankful for this year! First and foremost that we serve a mighty God and know we have eternity to spend with Him - and if you can't be thankful about that, what can you be thankful for? In thinking back over the events of this past year, there have been some highs and some lows. From the passing of my Grandpa to the birth of our first child, we have seen sadness in the ending of life and the joy that new beginnings bring through life's full cycle. My baby brother grew up himself, marrying his sweet wife and then traipsing to Georgia to begin their life as a couple ministering to college kids. My baby sister decided that traipsing across the US was not enough, and instead chose to transplant herself in Senegal, West Africa for at least a year, maybe two, to minister in a missionary school to 2nd graders. My older brother's wife started her own business via coupons and it has blown up! She is now holding seminars and has many, many followers on her site causing Jeff to think about quitting his job and just help manage Liza's work instead, haha!

Christian and I are both healthy and blessed beyond measure with our new addition. Micah brings us such joy and daily helps us die to our self. We have discussed many times how marriage can make you less selfish, as you now have a spouse in your life to appreciate and support and love. Having a child brings dying to yourself to a whole new level. Everything you do now is for your child. You have to put your desires and wishes on the back burner in order to make sure your child is well cared for. I find myself saying all the time, "What is best for Micah?" We have also learned about love. We both know it on a much deeper level than we did before. I did not think it were possible to love a little human being as much as we do - and I can not imagine giving that same amount of love to another child. Parents assure me, though, that it is possible. And the Lord willing, we will be able to experience that as well. We have been able to understand a little more of God the Father - seeing that we are now parents ourselves - and it has been such an enlightening experience.

With so many things to be grateful for, I pray that we always remember the sacrifice God gave of giving His son to die for our sins and our salvation. What an amazing gift we were given - that of eternity if we so choose to accept Christ as our Savior.

And with that, below is our Thanksgiving blessing in the life of Micah. He finally, FINALLY, figured out how to roll over from belly to back, therefore opening up a whole new world of movement. And he seems to be so close to begin the crawling stage as well. This video is after about 15-20 minutes of continuous activity, so he was starting to get tired, but you can still see him trying out his new piece of knowledge and we now realize that "baby-proofing" is not too far behind, haha!

Philadelphia Marathon

As promised, below are pictures from our wonderful weekend as a family in Pennsylvania.

Micah in his new carrier, a ErgoBaby, at Maggiano's ready to carbo-load the night before the race.

Christian and Micah at dinner. This was Micah's first time in a high chair, and although he did a good job, I think he's still a bit small for the high chair yet.

Chillin' on the hotel bed before bedtime.

Christian capturing me during the run - this time at the 6 mile marker. The last picture is me trying to grab Micah's attention, but from the picture below, you can see he was in quite a daze. He did, however, flash me a big smile once he realized it was his momma coming up to him:)

"Am I really out here this early in cold weather?"

I did it! First marathon in 2+ years at 5 1/2 months post-Micah. 3:51:36 - I'll take it:)


I love this picture of the two of us - Christian does such a nice job capturing sweet moments.

I had received this onesie from a friend prior to Micah's birth, and I knew the timing would be close to him being able to wear it for the race (it was a 3-6 month clothing item, and Micah was 5 1/2 months) but it fit, and although too cold to wear out in front, I had to show it off for a picture after the race and the symbolism that it holds.

Family shot, with the rocky steps in the background. Quite inspiring:)

Back at the hotel after a long but fun morning.

After we took naps (Micah) and got cleaned up (Kelly) we all headed out for some site-seeing in Philly. We couldn't come all that way and not see some of the very historic sites for American history.

This was the place where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.

The place where the liberty bell is now encased, with Independence Hall in the background.

Betsy Ross' House - and the home of the original American Flag.

This is what happens...

when you have 2 peeing and 1 pooping outside of your diaper and on your clothes (and surrounding wherabouts) incidents. Dinner was in a diaper, socks and a bib. Then is was bath time:)

5 sports bras, 2 gus, 4 cliff blocks and a partridge in a pear tree.

I will post more about the weekend later, but incase anyone is reading this and curious how the marathon went, I wanted to let you know it was great! I ran a 3:51:36 (8:49/mile average) marathon, which is faster (by 20 seconds, haha!) than my very first marathon back in 2001, and at 5 1/2 months post Micah, I am beyond happy with this time! It was much faster than I thought it would be, and I have to say that I really enjoyed the race. Sometimes the actual marathon, although I love it, can also be extremely difficult and cause you to get to the point where you say "I'm done. I can't run any more!!" but I truly never felt that during this race. I just continued to pound the miles out one by one and made it to the end in one piece and with a good time.

We just arrived home after a very long day: tough turbulent flight that was in holding patterns for 1/2 hour, lights out on Cicero because of the rain storm, and rush hour traffic on I-55 going home so I'm about in bed - and will post pictures and more details later this week. That is the update, however, on the race itself.

Here I go again...

The marathon weekend is finally upon us! It seems like forever ago that I signed up for this race (back in February, I believe) thinking - is 5 1/2 months post-baby reasonable for me to run a marathon? Will I actually be back in shape enough to do this? I guess only time will tell...and that time means 2 days away, not 2+ months away:) We all take off tomorrow for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and I'm praying that all goes well with Micah. I know he's flown before, but that was 3 months ago, and he's much more squirmy now. He's also eating cereal both in the morning and evening, so more stuff to bring and think about! I will be sure to update sometime this weekend, or maybe Monday on our way back to Chi-town. Should be a fun weekend!

Sleeping Update

Last night Micah woke at 3:30am, only for me to find him rolled over on his belly. After getting up to turn him over, I got to his room to hear silence. Going back to the monitor, I saw that he was trying to put himself back to sleep, on his belly! So, I let him be, and he slept until 5:45 when he woke up to eat. First time sleeping on his belly, and he did it for over 2 hours at night.

Today he was at my friend Lindsey's house while I was at work and she said he did the same thing for his second nap, which lasted from 12:45-3pm. (FYI - he NEVER naps that long for me, haha!) She had put him down on his back, gone to check on her son, heard Micah fussing and when she came back down to see him, he had gone to sleep on his belly.

I guess he's starting to decide that it's not worth laying there on his belly, and it's either figure out how to roll back over, or go to sleep...and he's choosing the latter. Shall be interesting to see what happens at bed time tonight....and the saga continues:)

Irony...

Micah has been learning so much lately, and we're starting to see that interfering with his sleep! Today, on every one of his 3 naps, when I put him down he almost immediately rolled over to his tummy. Problem is, he doesn't know how to roll back over AND he never sleeps on his tummy, thus the interfering with his sleep. When he rolls over he puts his head up and looks around for about 3-5 minutes, and then begins to fuss until I come in and then he becomes happy and flails his arms and legs:) He's so cute when doing this, but when he's not sleeping and I'm continually going in to turn him over, the cuteness starts to wear off (only just a little, haha!)

Ironically, just the night before I had told Christian how easy he is to put down for bed at night. Nap times might be a struggle here and there, but bed time NEVER is. He always goes down at night relatively quickly on his own, and stays asleep most of the night. So, tonight when I put him down to sleep, he rolled to his tummy right away and I'm thinking - wasn't it just last night that I told Christian how he goes over without any problem? So funny that the night just after I voiced this, it took Micah about 1/2 hour to go to sleep because he kept turning over, or trying to turn over.

I've been told this is normal and that it goes quickly, so we'll just wait this out and see what happens. Either way though, he's so cute and Christian and I love watching him through the video monitor seeing him working so hard to roll over and test out all the new things he's learning. Pretty soon he's going to be sitting up on his own, and testing this out in the crib as well!

Learning to Sit

Micah has grown immensely in his development this past month, and month 6 is starting out strong as well. Last week we tried having him sit unsupported, and just in one week's time he has become a pro! The pictures below are from last Friday, and even in the 2 days since then, he's that much better at sitting up. What a fun stage (and I'm finding I'm saying that quite often:)).

My foot was there to start off because I just wasn't sure how steady he was going to be for me to take a few pictures.

Clearly, I didn't need to worry, haha!

Sorry if the video is slightly shaky - I was trying to tape this but also make sure that Micah didn't fall too hard and hit his head:)

Hot Chocolate Run

Yesterday I ran in my first race post-Micah, and it felt good! I had been convinced by Noelle (and then we convinced Laura) to do this Hot Chocolate Run 15k (9.3 miles) because what could be a better prize than Ghirardelli Fondue and Hot Chocolate at the end of the race? "Will run for Chocolate" was the slogan that many adopted.

It was a beautiful day and a girl trip down to the city for a great run! I did much better than I thought I would (placing in the top 11% overall and the top 5% in both sex and division) and gave me hope that I will do okay in my upcoming marathon in 2 weeks. Yikes - that's also a scary thought! We shall see - only time will tell...but I was pleased to get a good feel for a race prior to the big day.

The three girls enjoying some down time after our big run. It was the farthest Laura had ever run, and her and Noelle did awesome!

I was so excited about the chocolate, as you can tell from my face, hands, teeth, etc. When I spilled this, Laura and Noelle immediately pulled out their phones to take a picture of it, ha! What did we used to do without smartphones, seriously?

Visiting Daddy's Work

Christian has been asking me to bring Micah in to his work for awhile now, so this past Monday I finally made the venture down to the city by myself. The big dilemma for me was to drive or train/bus to go downtown, and after a little debate, I decided to do the latter. I wasn't sure how Micah would handle the trip, whether he'd take the naps needed or be mister cranky pants, and I was absolutely amazed at how perfect he was! He seriously didn't make a peep on the train down as well as the bus over to the Hancock building. And then when he met all of Christian's co-workers, he was super happy and smiley, and you would have never known he needed a diaper change and a feeding! It was a wonderful day and I realize, once again, how blessed we are with such an amazing baby.

On the train on the way downtown.

The way I got Micah to take his first afternoon nap - it took a little convincing because of the loud speaker going off every 2-3 minutes, but he did eventually go out for about a half-hour (which was all he needed).

The place where Micah took his second afternoon nap - worn out from the trip to Daddy's work and all the people completely captured by his cuteness:)

Just waking up - such a comfy chair!!

Micah and Daddy - the view from his office - 29th floor of the Hancock building, and this is with Navy Pier and Lake Michigan in the background.

All bundled up ready to come home.

Waiting for the bus...

Bus ride back home. What an exhausting, but exciting day! (and to think tis is what Christian does every time he travels in to work...)

Halloween #1 and #2

As I said in my previous post, Christian and I are not really Halloween people, but it was sure fun to see Micah and all his small group friends dressed up in such cute costumes. And, Micah was special because he had 2 costumes to dress up in - one which was a little big from my friend Katie (although the hat was too small because his head is in the 95%, haha!) and one which was a little small from my friend Kate. Last Friday we met up with Alissa and Lindsey (two small group girls) and their kids at a nursing home and Micah was a huge hit! He was pretty stoic throughout the whole experience, just taking everything in, but he was such a cute little pumpkin:)

On Halloween day (also the day he turned 5 months!) Micah met up with all the small group gang to experience trick-or-treating for the first time. I think mom and dad were way more excited to see him in his peapod costume (and grab the candy for our own sweet tooth) than Micah was, but it was still a great time with friends and fun memories to make as a family.

Halloween #1

Micah, Cole, Jack and Adam

Micah came to life after we got out of the nursing home...not so many people I guess:)

Halloween #2

Family shot (thanks Laura) with our little peapod!