Happy Half Birthday, Alexander Jay Eric!

I can not even believe that our lil baby is 6 months old already! He is doing new things almost every day and getting better at previously met milestones, too. He makes raspberries a lot now. He's funny, though bc he makes them to be silly but also when he is mad. And he has been expressing his anger or frustration a lot more recently! His micro-tantrums do not last long but since we were so use to him rarely crying or fussing, even the few minutes here and there are hard to hear. Something else that is changing a bit is his sleeping. He has always been a great sleeper but recently he has started to wake more during the night. Nothing ridiculous where he's crying hysterically or anything but enough to wake me up and have to help make him comfy again. We weaned him off of swaddling bc he has just gotten to long and too strong for it. So I think the sleep thing has something to do with this change. Last night was the first night we put him to bed in a sleep sack and while it took him a bit longer to get to sleep, he slept great. So I am hoping that was the solution.

Two days ago he finally rolled from his back to his tummy, something his Daddy has been working extra hard on getting him to do recently. He is now pretty good at eating solids. So far he has had cereal (although rice did not agree with his lil system!), bananas, sweet potatoes and peas. I started making some of his food which so far has proven to be a lot easier than I had thought. He is chatting up a storm lately and is loving his exersaucer and Jolly Jumper. Changing his outfits and diapers is getting more and more difficult bc he likes to roll around and grab his feet during the changes. He is really liking it when we read him books now, too. And actually we don't even have to read them, just hold them in front of him so he can see the pictures, touch the pages and last night he even started to turn the board pages himself! AMAZING! Oh, and he recognizes his name - I think he responds more to "Alex" than "AJ" so maybe we do call him that more, although I still feel like it's pretty equal.

People keep telling me that as he grows, it'll get better and better, and he'll get more and more fun. I am so torn...on one hand I wanna freeze him at where he is on each day. But on the other hand it is so neat to see him develop and learn more and more each day.

As you all know I take tons of pictures of him. I have a gidzillion folders on our computer with each week, event etc broken up. Then I have a folder that is one picture from each week bday. He is 26 weeks now so that's 26 pictures so far. While some weeks it is a real pain to get that week picture, I am so glad I have been doing this. It is amazing to look at those pictures as a slideshow and see in a blink just how much he has grown each week we've had him. I also have a folder for a picture each month bday which will eventually fill the "1st Year" frame we have in his bedroom. But the week folder tells more of his story and I love looking at it!

Here is one of the photos I took of him today. What a silly, handsome boy!