{ I Love My Feet }

Do we have a poster boy for Gerber or what? That smile is like gold. I need to start marketing our munchkin. Why would he not flash a single one of those during family pictures? Oh right, he's a kid.

Ahh progress! We are getting so much done around here these days. Crafting, packing, gaining weight and just generally crossing stuff off the list.  Let's do a quick recap.

Peanut is rapidly gaining weight, now that we're feeding him more food. He gained 10 oz in one week to be exact. And that was a week ago that we had the check up. He's a jolly old 12lbs now. We'll see how he's tipping the scales June 1st at the second weigh in.

This success is due to his, now eager, eating of the extra bottles of formula that he's given on top of nursing. He also has now decided that he loves eating things from a spoon (or just eating the spoon itself). After that first failed attempt with the rice cereal I waited a week and then tried again, this time thickening the cereal. That did the trick! The side of the box said to water it down so much for the first feeding but he just kept spitting it out. Now with the thicker cereal he slurps it up and then smacks his lips while he swallows. I think my favorite part though is how he leans. He's still not able to sit up all the way by himself so we have to make sure to hold him somehow while he dives for the spoon. He'll dive so fast to get his mouth around it that he tips over to the side like so. I started letting him hold my pinky finger on the hand that's holding the cup and he holds on with an iron grip and stays upright. I secretly like it better this way. I love when he wants to hold my hand.

Short side story. I was with some women the other day at the Temple visitor's center and we were watching one of the videos. The other lady was holding Peanut while I was sitting next to them. He kept reaching out and holding my sleeve, even though he was quiet and content on the other ladies lap. It was like he wanted to reassure me that he still loved me best. Ha ha. What a charmer!

Next update: The Peanut has officially found his feet! He has finally figured out how to get them to his mouth is what I really mean. When I put him on the changing table I get his diaper off and the first thing he does, whether I've wiped him or not, is whip his feet up, grab them with his hands and start to giggle. He also loves to do this when I put him down in his crib. He lifts his legs high in the air and gives one of those little manipulative smiles saying, "I'm just so cute, look what I can do with my feet, are you really going to make me go to bed right now?"  The very nicest part of this is he is becoming much more self entertained ever since he found those little friends, with wiggly toes, at the bottom of his legs. Which means, I have been able to get this art piece (the one in the picture above) done. It has been cooking in my brain for some time now.

I have been trying to come up with crafts that are made from completely recycled items except for maybe paint and paper, and then whatever else I have lying around the house. So for this piece, I cut Rob's dead tennis balls in half and made a caterpillar "D", then took some broken dowels I found and made them into little twigs and then cut out leaves from green paper and folded them a little to make them 3-D. I made some homemade canvases out of paper mache and pizza/Omaha Steak boxes and wa la. Here is the finished product. I am so happy with it. The green and blue together are my favorite. I hope Des likes them because those colors are all over everything in his room.

So there's a quick snippet of life on the east coast for now. I'll make sure and post some videos the next go around.