5 Months

• Baby boy can sit, for the most part, by himself now. He loves to do it because he can play with his toys easier that way. He also loves tummy time now too because it’s easier to be in on the action of playing that way too.
  

  This was back when he was first learning how to sit. He can sit up straighter now, though.

• He has his own crib that he sleeps in now! For the past five months, he has either slept in the bassinet or a pack-n-play because in our other apartment, we didn’t have enough room to set up the crib. And he also has his own room now! He wakes up less frequently (knock on wood), and I love it.

• Down here in the South, people still comment on him being “alert” and “aware” but they also tend to say that he “bright eyes”.
• He loves to smack his hand against things as hard as he can. I honestly worry that he will hurt his hands because he hits so hard. The other day he wanted to play with the apple bag (because he loves the sounds of bags. Oh, and the sounds of water bottles. He loves those, too.) so he was smacking his hands so hard on the apple bag that he bruised the apples.
• He has begun to show interest in certain “toys”. He loves anything electronic. He loves banging his hands against the keyboard of computers and the piano. He also loves to look at the screens of the camera and any cell phone.
• He also loves books. He will open and close the cover of books over and over. He gets so excited when it is time to read scriptures at night. He has started to make a big “ooohhhh” face while simultaneously kicking his feet and flapping his arms when he gets excited. When we put the scriptures away at night, he gets upset and cries.

• He went swimming for the first time the other day. At first, he didn’t know what to think of it. He was just staring at the water making his “oohhhh” face. He eventually warmed up and enjoyed kicking his feet and flapping his arms in the water.

• He is so curious about everything now! If I am holding him, and he sees something that he wants to explore, he will wiggle and squirm to try to reach it . . . even if I am standing and he sees something on the ground. It makes it difficult to hold him at times.
• He wiggles, squirms, and rolls to get around.
• He has begun to get into things that he shouldn’t. He found a pen today and managed to mark up his face. I was on the phone with someone when it happened, and when I looked down, I saw that he had 3 pen marks on his face and I couldn’t help but just crack up. That made it sort of awkward for finishing that phone conversation.

• He likes to sleep on his side now. It’s super cute. Sometimes he even likes to cup his hand under his head while on his side. Sometimes after I put him down for the night, I just sit and watch him sleep for a bit. I love how peaceful and serene he looks while sleeping.

• He has been doing this new smile thing. He will suck his lips in over his gums and then curl his lips up slightly. So super cute.
• And just yesterday, he discovered a new sound that he can make and finds it very entertaining. It’s hard to describe the sound, but it is like a voicey-gasping-inhaling sound. He will inhale air and the “gasp” that sort of sounds like a honking duck. It usually makes him cough afterwards, but he doesn’t care. Last night he woke up at 4:00 am (he made it all the way from 9:30 pm to 4:00 am! Tender mercies!) and after I fed him and put him back down, he stayed awake for another ten minutes entertaining himself by “gasping” and then squealing and laughing. Funny guy.
• He also thinks it’s super funny when we scare him. He loves when you look at him suddenly and say “Boo!” He laughs so hard when we do this.
• He is able to stand with us just holding onto his hands.

• He has started to get more hair . . . and I think it is coming in blonde, but that could just be me wanting that to happen.

South Carolina

So we have made it to South Carolina. Phew! We don’t have internet still, so we’ve actually been here for over a week. It has been a crazy adventure moving across the country, but man, people are so nice to us! We were able to stay with a family here while we were in between apartments, and then we were also able to borrow a car while we were waiting for ours to make it across the country (thanks Chuck!).

People down here are really nice. For the past 8 months or so, I’ve been trying to imagine what the people would be like down here in the South. Would it be like the cliché deep southern people you see in the movies? Or would it be a little more redneck-like since we’re near the Appalachian Mountains? I thought it was going to be more redneck, but I have been surprised that it is a bit more southern than I would have guessed. Sometimes people talk with such a strong accent that I cannot understand what they are saying. Seriously. Oh, and we were given a “southern lingo” handout by our apartment complex so that we can try to understand the dialect a bit better. My favorite on the sheet is, “Mash = Put; ‘Please mash the button the elevator.’” Haha, what? Most of the words on the list are just three words squished together into one word, like “howaou” aka “how are you?” And whenever strangers see Baby Kenny, they are not afraid to stop me, squeeze his cheeks, ask to hold him, and touch their nose to Kenny’s nose (seriously that happened. I’m usually okay with all the weird things that people do around babies, but that was a little too much for me.). And the way they talk to him! Kills me. “Well aint you pritty? You just the sweetest thang.” *Imagine said in a southern accent.

Oh, and growing up in Ohio, I thought I was acclimated to humidity, but I guess living in Utah for 6 years has made me weak. I walked outside this morning at 9:00 AM and it was sweltering! Boy, it gets hot. We have AC that we crank, and thankfully almost every room in our apartment has a ceiling fan, but still. So hot. And for the first 4 days we were here it rained every.single.day. And I’m not talking a drizzle. We’re talking a real downpour! Kenny experienced his first thunderstorm, and I don’t think he was too big of a fan. The thunder was a bit too loud for him and made him cry.

And speaking of Kenny, we went to our new ward for the first time last Sunday, and apparently Kenny thought I needed a bit more color on my skirt, so he decided to add a bit more. And by a bit more, I mean a whole lot. From my hip to my knee.  I wish I could say it was just spit-up; however, I was not that lucky. “Nice to meet you. What’s your name? Poopy skirt girl? Well, nice to meet you.” Awesome timing, bud.

The above picture is a typical outfit for Mr. Man since it gets so hot, and oh yeah it works very nicely seeing that we are close to the beach. So yeah, we are enjoying South Carolina! We are excited for this next bit of adventure in our lives!