Playtime

Here are some pictures of Jakub playing on the floor. They aren't anything too exciting, but I thought you might enjoy seeing him during his tummy-time:) I also took some video of this today, but I don't yet know how to upload it (Josh will show me sometime). He's holding his head up very well and even raising himself up on his arms just a bit. He kicks like crazy as if he's trying to crawl. He hasn't been rolling over anymore, but he will again I'm sure. He loves the book that is in front of him and when I turn it to the page with the baby on it he smiles and talks to the baby. It's so sweet! He also enjoyed Josh getting down there with him to talk and play. He's been cooing and talking a lot more over the last 2 days and it's been so nice to hear. He also laughed this morning at Josh as he was singing him some nonsense song with lots of fun noises in it. Every time Josh started singing again he would turn his head away and smile and make a raspy laughing noise. I really wish we had gotten that on tape, but we were getting ready to go out the door. I'll try to get him to do it again soon:) Enjoy the pictures! (By the way, I didn't realize until just now when editing the photos that he has a string of spit hanging down in almost every one of them... sorry:) )








Here are some pictures of Jakub playing on the floor. They aren't anything too exciting, but I thought you might enjoy seeing him during his tummy-time:) I also took some video of this today, but I don't yet know how to upload it (Josh will show me sometime). He's holding his head up very well and even raising himself up on his arms just a bit. He kicks like crazy as if he's trying to crawl. He hasn't been rolling over anymore, but he will again I'm sure. He loves the book that is in front of him and when I turn it to the page with the baby on it he smiles and talks to the baby. It's so sweet! He also enjoyed Josh getting down there with him to talk and play. He's been cooing and talking a lot more over the last 2 days and it's been so nice to hear. He also laughed this morning at Josh as he was singing him some nonsense song with lots of fun noises in it. Every time Josh started singing again he would turn his head away and smile and make a raspy laughing noise. I really wish we had gotten that on tape, but we were getting ready to go out the door. I'll try to get him to do it again soon:) Enjoy the pictures! (By the way, I didn't realize until just now when editing the photos that he has a string of spit hanging down in almost every one of them... sorry:) )

2 Month Old Pictures and Birthdays...

Just a quick note to say we recently celebrated the 2nd birthday of Evan, our teammates Corey and Sarah's son, and the 30th birthday of our teammate Graham. Here is the cookie cake Christie made for Evan. He LOVES Thomas the train now and this cake was such a good idea.

This is a simple, but good, spice cake we made for Graham. The decorating on top was supposed to be more elaborate, but Jakub had a sudden crying fit that's not usual for him during the day. Oh well, that's how it goes. At least we had a cake, right?

Here they are blowing out Graham's candles together. Evan loves blowing out candles over and over:) So sweet...

Here is Jakub's sweet face:) He's so smiley these days. I love it!


Here he is talking away. Can you see how long his feet are? This is a 3-6mo outfit and he fills it out all the way. You can also see that the hair coming back in on the top is mostly all blond now, and the older hair on the sides and back is more reddish. I'm going to miss that red hair. It's so gorgeous in the sunlight.

And here he is enjoying some quiet time in his swing that his Grandma Babi and Papa gave him. He loves to watch those bees now and he laughs at them and talks to them. It's so funny to watch. He turns his head with a big grin like he's being shy and as if they just told him some funny story. I can spend so much time just watching him- it's no wonder the dishes get backed up and I give up the shower for spending time with him;)

2 Months!

Well, I don't have any pictures to go with this post at the moment, but I'll add some more soon. I'm also hoping to add some of the videos we've been taking of Jakub. So, check back for those soon.

Jakub is 2 months old! I really can't believe it. I remember his birth and our stay in the hospital like it was yesterday. However, sometimes when I look at him playing on the floor and I see how big and strong he is already it seems like he's a lot older and has been with us longer. He's just so sweet!

Here are some things I want to remember about what he's doing right now:
- He plays well on his tummy and lifts his head, and sometimes shoulders, well up off the ground.
- On Saturday he rolled himself over two times onto his right side and back. Of course, by the third attempt we had the camera out and he wouldn't do it again:)
- For the first time last night he slept from 930 until 5am. His last feeding was 830pm. He did, of course, cry out a couple of times in the night and had to be patted, but he kept sleeping thankfully. He's really starting to do well at that and though I know we'll have ups and downs still, I'm so thankful for better sleep. I actually woke up on my own at 4am and couldn't sleep anymore. Of course, I was just getting sleepy again when he woke up to eat. I'm sure that won't be much of a problem for me after a while:) The only part I don't like is that I'm used to staying up late with Josh because that's when we finally used to have our own free time together, and now I have to scurry off to bed if I want to sleep well. That's ok though:) I know there will be better time for that again sometime in the future. Josh is really sweet to check on him and care for him if he wakes much before 2am, which really helps me to get to sleep and sleep deeply. He's a great Father!
- With minimal assistance, he's started putting himself to sleep in his crib for some naps over the past couple of days.
- He loves to be sung to when he's sleepy. His favorite with me right now is Jesus Loves Me. The Itsy Bitsy Spider isn't working anymore:) Josh sings a Czech Christmas carol to him that he seems to really like as well. It has a very fun rhythm and Josh has a deeper voice that he really likes to hear.
- He's enjoying his swing more and more and smiles a lot at the two bees that hang from the top.
- He was playing with Josh the other day and started to talk to him and was in the middle of saying "aaa" when he sneezed. It really sounded like he intended to say ah-choo and it was hilarious. I wish we had gotten that on tape.
- I like it when he tracks me across the room as I move around cleaning or cooking.
- He's really good at taking medicine and eye drops and never cries about it. I'm always expecting him to react to the eye touching and putting in of drops, but he doesn't.
- He is standing more and more on our laps and holding himself fairly steady. He's so strong!

Ok... I think that's it for now. I will post more pics and video (hopefully) soon.

By the way... it's snowing again here and I think we got another 3-4 inches over night!

An Adventure...

So, all of that snow we've been getting began to melt for just a bit one day early this week. Then, it returned to below-freezing temps and everything re-froze. One night it began snowing hard again and the snow stuck to everything it touched, which was covered in a layer of ice or a snowy-ice mix. It was beautiful. I know these pictures are blurry, but you can see how everything turned white. I have never seen anything like it. I just had to take a few pictures. It's melted off of the trees again, but we still have about 10 inches or so of snow and ice on the ground.
Here's the path to our parking lot.

And here's what it looked like in the daytime. It was gorgeous and oh-so-cold. I did finally take Kuba out for a walk in it for more than 30 minutes or a quick jaunt to the car. I decided to join the society of Czech Mothers this week and do the whole walk-outside-the-whole-nap-time thing. We walked for about 1 1/2 hours in this stuff. He didn't seem to mind one bit once I got his head stabilized inside the carriage:) Walking him on the re-frozen sidewalks with all the frozen footprints was like going over potholes the whole time. I didn't have an extra blanket with me, and I don't have one of those head guards, so I stuffed diapers around his head inside of his pram to keep his head still. Once we got that done he went right to sleep for a nice long nap. What can I say, I'm still figuring it all out:) Next time I'll be better prepared.


Here he is at 7 weeks playing on the floor. He's so sweet with the way he looks at us and smiles and interacts with us. He's definitely begun a sort of raspy laugh at some things we do or at the load of kisses that come to his face:)

So photogenic:) You can see the Krtek book in the background- a favorite of his. It's a popular Czech character here.

One last one to leave you with. He's sporting a 3mo outfit again that you can see fits perfectly now in length. It's a little big through the middle when his belly's not so full:) Thanks Aunt Kiley for the cute outfit!! I'm afraid he's going to outgrow the changing table soon...and it's pretty long!

Visiting the Doctor

We had our 7-week-old visit to the doctor on Tuesday afternoon. One thing I love is that his doctor is located in the building outside of our apartment building. We literally have to walk a matter of feet to visit his doctor. It's a wait-in-line process here so, I like to go right when they open and immediately after feeding him so that he's well behaved for the visit:) So far he's been perfect for 3 different visits. Everything checked out well at this one. He weighed in at 14 lbs 1 oz. :) He's growing well! They don't always measure length but, Josh and I tried to tonight at home and I think he's 25 inches now. I know he's growing quickly in length because he's wearing 3 mo outfits in length, but not in size yet. Sadly, the outfit he wore on Christmas Day did not fit tonight when I went to put it on. It just all changes so quickly! Next month we'll have some shots to look forward to at the doctor... otherwise things are going pretty well.

He's a pretty easy and calm baby until it comes to sleeping. He sleeps so well once he gets there, but putting him to sleep has become a bit of a crying game. Any tips from you Moms out there? I've read some tips in a book called "The Baby Whisperer," and I really like them. I've been using them for a while, though, and so far it's working well enough, but it's not breaking the crying game yet. I think it just might be his nature as well. He's a very social baby and loves to be around people and to talk a lot and observe everything, but he overstimulates some and then seems to cry it out before sleeping. I also realize that he's only 7 weeks old and is still learning about his environment and his own ways and routine. It's early yet, but I'm trying to start good habits now for the future. I would love any tips any of you have on a good napping/bedtime routine or habits for helping them off to sleep more easily. I would love to be able to put him in his bed and have him go to sleep on his own. That's the goal of these baby whisperer tips. I know it will take time, though. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who has small children.

That's it for now:) More pictures to come soon.

Spending time with Daddy

Just thought I would start off with a couple of pictures of the snow we got this week. It snowed at least a little every day this week. On Friday it snowed the most and by the end of this week I think we had a total of about 10 inches of snow. It's beautiful! It's the most snow we have had at one time since moving here and is more typical of what a winter here should be like. I hope it keeps this up for a while. It doesn't make for good walking weather with Jakub, though.



I took several pictures of Josh and Jakub talking and playing together the other night. They were so sweet together! Jakub really smiles at us all the time now and every once in a while he seems to giggle (it's really more raspy) at us. He's starting to coo more, also. It's really enjoyable to see and hear. He's about 7 weeks in these photos. His eyes look dark in the photos still, but they are starting to lighten up in the center of his eyes and it looks like he might have blue eyes like his Daddy. I guess we'll see over the next several months.

I love how he opens his mouth so wide to smile and talk to us. It's wonderful also that when we walk away he tracks us and watches as we move around the room or walk away. Sometimes he even seems to turn his head towards us at the sound of our voices. He seems to be learning some things so quickly. He is definitely a watchful and observant child.

This one is blurry, but still sweet and shows how he was talking with Josh. He also holds his own head up really well. He feels so strong in the way that he moves, sits, and kicks. He's also still doing well with tummy time, but only for about 5-10 minutes at a time. He fights sleep a little more now and will often cry right before dropping off into sleep. Otherwise, he's a pretty content little baby. We're often making it about 4 hours between feedings in the night now. We're at 3 hours during the day time. I'll be really glad when he sleeps several hours during the night because I'm not good at waking up often in the night- I really like to sleep myself and don't find this whole waking up thing to be very fun:) Who does, right?


Though you can't really see the right ear well in this photo I think it's interesting to point out that he has 2 slightly different ears. His right ear is more like Josh's and is closer to his head and a little firmer. His ear on his left, which you can see in the above photo, is more flexible like mine and also sticks out more like mine... poor kid:) It's not really a noticable difference to anyone else, but I can see it:) He has really pretty lips, by the way, and I like that! He also had big eyes and long eye lashes. We're not quit sure where the big dimple in the chin came from, but it's cute, too. He's now losing most of his beautiful red-blond hair, but I can see white-blond hair growing in behind it. I think he's gorgeous in blue and I find myself dressing him in that the most:) He looks pretty great in green, too.

What else do I want to remember for now... he holds his own weight on his legs when standing up, his kicks are so strong they can hurt, he loves to be sung to (especially by Josh), he likes to snuggle in your neck, he hiccups at least 2 times a day, he does well at sleeping in his own bed, he is very social already and always puts on a good show when we have company, his favorite toy is still the Christmas tree in our living room that I haven't had time to take down:), his other best-friend are the blinds in our living room, he never minds having his diaper changed and he doesn't mind when it's dirty, either, and he really likes bath time. He likes to have a passy to fall asleep with, but thankfully shows no signs of dependency on it otherwise and he doesn't care when it falls out during sleep. I'll leave you with one sweet photo of him sleeping. It's amazing he looks this peaceful after the amount of crying it takes to get here sometimes:) It's getting better already, though.

Our precious little Kuba (also known as Kubicek, Kubicku, Kubo, and Kubika by Czechs when they talk to him:) ...

5 and 6 Weeks Old and Merry Christmas!

Here are some pictures of Jakub from 5 and 6 weeks old as well as Christmas time. They are not in any particular order:) Above is Josh rocking Jakub to sleep after his bath the other night. See how long he is already? I also really love this color blue on him. He's almost 6 weeks in this photo.

This one is blurry, but still cute:) Here he's getting dressed after his bath.

Here he's getting his hair combed... exciting stuff, huh? :) You can see the look of concentration on my face...
Look at those long legs! I love them! Naked babies are so sweet:) Can I post something like that?? We also tried to weigh him recently and I think he weighs about 12 lbs now. I also measured him around 24 inches. Our next appointment is Jan. 12th.

Sweet Aunt Laura!

Playing cards together to ring in the new year last night. Jakub was being a little shy...

Some quality play time with Dad. He does well with his tummy time, too. You can't tell here, but he's really staring at his best friend the Christmas tree:) He loves the lights.

Here he is with Aunt Hopey! Were so glad she and my Dad could come for one week for Christmas.

Just a sweet face he makes when stretching and yawning.

Mommy and Jakub. He's wearing a cute shirt from Aunt Nellie that you will see below.

Mommy's stinker is so true!

5 weeks old...

Christmas morning with his chocolate and golf club (thanks Pop!:) The golf club is one of mine that my Dad cut down for Jakub to have!

Talking to Grandma Babi:)

Hope and Laura Christmas morning.

Just a funny face...He's 5 weeks here. We're enjoying him so much and are so blessed. Happy New Year to you all!