ELI & JAMES: 6 MONTHS

We thought it was time for an updated comparison of the cousins (photos taken at 6 months).

Take it away boys!

LITTLE MONKEY

Not only does James have prehensile toes, but we found out tonight that he absolutely LOVES bananas! Jay held him close while I mashed half a banana and he watched intently the whole time. When we gave him a sniff, his eyes lit up. He enjoyed every bite, didn't get distracted at all, and actually stayed very clean for once because he didn't let any of the good stuff escape and kept his hands out of his mouth. Banana is weird mashed - it becomes very slippery and somewhat translucent. We attempted to let James do a little self feeding too, giving him 2 tiny pieces of chopped banana. He pushed them around his tray and tried to pick them up, but he wasn't able to get them into his hands. So we mashed those and gave them to him via spoon too.

And Jay is very excited to have his turn to feed our little monkey boy tomorrow night!

HAPPY HALF BIRTHDAY ELI!

Our nephew turned 6-months-old today and we wish he was here visiting with his Grambot and Great-Grandma so we could give him a BIG hug! Instead, we had to settle for calling him and singing him Happy Half-Birthday! We love you 'Lil Man!

28 "WADDELLS"

If you are not a "Waddell" and you can name every family member in this photo, you deserve a prize. Or at least a cookie. Let me know how you do...

And our upcoming Christmas photo will likely have the entire bunch, so if you didn't get it right this time, keep practicing...

WEEKEND WITH HIS GRANDS

We've had a pretty relaxing weekend. We took James for a walk around the neighborhood... And now that James can sit up on his own (and he LOVES the new train that his Grandpa picked out for him)... ...we set up his splash pool, which we were waiting to use until he could sit unassisted. The water was cold (you have to keep it running to make it stay up, so we couldn't just remedy the situation by adding hot water), and he was NOT impressed:

He was reaching for me like "Mom, HELP! Quit taking pictures and pull me outta here!" Don't worry, he got over it quickly. We stripped off the cold wet swimsuit and let him have some naked time outside. Then I tried to get some cute photos of him with his Grambot, but they all turned out blurry. I'll have to try again later this week... until then, here's the happy grandma with her little guy:

FIRST FRUIT

For James' first fruit, we decided to make it special. His GGmama sent us home with a load of pears last weekend and we thought they would be the perfect choice. James thought so too:

His Great-Grandma handled the feeding and James thought the pears were finger-licking good!

WELCOME BACK GRAMBOT & GREAT-GRANDMA!

We are SO excited to have my mom and grandma visiting this week! They told us not to, but we took off work early so we could greet them at the airport:

Their plans for the big week? Snuggling James, playing with James, singing to James, taking James for walks, feeding James, bathing James, reading to James, kissing James, rocking James, etc. You know, all that great baby stuff. And perhaps most importantly, teaching James to say "Grambot". Good luck with that one mom!

HI PUMPKIN, MEET JAMES.

James, meet pumpkin:

He waffled between like and dislike for each bite, got distracted by the cats, spent more time talking than eating, started "dancing" in his seat (sort of an arm-flapping, lunging back-and-forth silliness), and finished MAYBE half of his meal. Then Jay dumped a few spoonfuls on the tray and let him have at it. He enjoyed squishing it around and painting the tray, the back of the highchair, his face, and the top of his head with it. Good thing we do his bath right after dinner! And when he stuck his thumb in his mouth (as he still constantly does), he was not-so-pleasantly surprised to taste pumpkin on his hands. Oh yeah, and while awesome (thank you D&T!), his pirate bib is apparently a very appealing texture for sucking on, so we had to fight with him to keep it out of his mouth while we were trying to feed him. Oh well, we'll give it another shot tonight.

GGMAMA'S BIRTHDAY CARD

This is the card we made for Jay's grandmother's birthday, which is today (Happy 94th Birthday Grandmother!):

At her request, and in honor of her birthday, I am sharing the BEST chocolate pound cake recipe (the credit goes to the mother of Ben, who is the boyfriend of Whitney, who is Gerald's daughter and Jay's cousin - did you catch all that?)

1 box Betty Crocker Supermoist Yellow Cake mix

1/2 cup sugar

1 (3.9oz) box instant chocolate pudding

3/4 cup vegetable oil

4 large eggs

3/4 cup water

1 (8oz) carton sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

powdered sugar

Combine cake mix, sugar, and pudding mix. Stir with wire whisk. Add oil, eggs, water, and sour cream. Stir until smooth. Add vanilla. Pour into greased and floured bundt pan (or pound cake pan). Bake 1 hour at 350, or until wooden toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes before removing. Let cool completely, then sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy!

UPDATED 09-28-09: I made the pound cake tonight and it is WONDERFUL!

GGMAMA'S BIRTHDAY WEEKEND

It's that time of year again - Jay's Grandmother's birthday weekend! We love this weekend because the entire "Waddell" family gets together to celebrate (well, almost everyone - those in school or overseas generally can't make the trip) and hang out at Doug & Cheryl's lake house. Last year, this event is where we broke the news of my pregnancy. This year, we had our adorable 6-month-old son to show off. And he was a hit! We have lots of photos to share, but most were not taken by me (for once I was too busy socializing to man my camera), so look for another blog update as soon as Jay gets his photos downloaded, and Beverly, Jill, and Cheryl get theirs uploaded to Snapfish. Here's a quick weekend review in photos to get you started...

As we were leaving daycare on Friday, James showed us a new trick. He can now sit up in his carseat. While adorable, this makes strapping him in when he doesn't want to be more difficult than before (after he learned to grab the straps and get his arms in the way).

He was curious to see which toys I stashed in the diaper bag for the long trip:

Everyone thought James' new habit of holding his hands together was super cute. They all said "it looks like he's praying"! He mostly does it while he's napping, but he does it when awake too.
At one of the rest stops, Jay let James test out the driver seat to stretch his legs and get a different view:At one point, while I was reading a magazine, I turned the page and James started squealing and singing. When I looked at the page that was facing him, it was a close-up of a beautiful little girl. She came in handy on the return trip too... instantly cheering him up when he got a little fussy. I've been teasing him ever since that he's too young for a girlfriend. Besides, she's obviously a celebrity, and you know what their reputations are like...
We got there so late Friday night (well after midnight) that James didn't get to meet his GGmama until the next morning. Even after a mere 4 hours of sleep, he was in a great mood and very social. He loved his GGmama immediately:GGmama got to ride with James on the way to the lake house. Before he fell asleep, he had a good time studying her glasses and telling her all about his car toys:
As soon as we arrived at the lake house, Wyatt asked if he could hold James. We got him all settled on the couch (he's a little too young still to be carrying a 17 lb baby around) and handed him over. James got really close to his face! I think both boys enjoyed checking each other out. Then Finn, who was the baby of the family for almost 3 years until James showed up (James is GGmama's 10th great-grandchild), was super sweet and came over to share his cookie:
Then Kate had her turn. They put the FL-GA rivalry aside and had a great photo shoot (don't worry, everyone else got much better pictures than I took):

And here's the birthday girl!

We tried to get a good picture of James with his Grandma (who had to fight with the 28 other party attendees for James-time), but the love-bugs and gnats were annoying him, so this is the best we got:
Jean did get to feed him dinner though. It was his first taste of broccoli and he was far from impressed. Unlike the green beans, he made up his mind immediately that broccoli belongs in the yucky category. Oh well, we'll try again next month. Here he is with bite #2, telling his grandma "oh please, like you really think I'm going to open up again?"And here he's saying "excuse me, but since I wasn't clear enough last time, now I'm just going to ignore you and your green-goopy spoon":Jay has a few great shots of his "eeeeew" face. We'll get them up later...

Here is Heather stealing a little snuggle time and some smooches right before we had to leave (the day always goes by too fast):

Back at GG's house, we made sure she had some more face-time with the little man:

And he took us literally:

We all got a bit more sleep that night, but it still wasn't enough. Jay and James passed out for a nap shortly after breakfast on Sunday:

Uncle Gerald finally got his chance to hold James as we were packing the car:

And we grabbed a picture with Aunt Sara too:

Then it was another 9 long hours back to Mississippi. James slept for most of the trip, but still managed to sleep 10 hours straight through last night, so we must have really wore him out with the busy weekend! It was lots of fun and so good to see everyone. And we can't wait until Christmas, when EVERYONE will be there (that's another 6 family members, bringing the grand total to 34). Good. We'll need all the extra hands we can get once he starts crawling!

Thanks everyone - we had a blast!

WEIRDO

James has been getting himself into some weird positions lately...

Sleeping in the hip-carry position in the sling at the grocery store (I ended up having to move him around to the front-carry position so that he wasn't completely slumped face-down into the sling fabric):
Even so, he still ended up with an imprint on his face from his overalls:
Napping in his play-yard:

Wiggling around in his bath tub (which he's quickly outgrowing, as you can see):

Playing with a long cardboard box:

Obsessing over his feet (Jay had picked him up off the floor to take him to the car and he kept his grip on them the whole way!):

And more toe sucking (we were letting him watch the aquarium from a different height in his new umbrella stroller - hence the cardboard box, thanks Mom!):

We've had to stop putting socks on him for daycare... he either sucks on them until they're soaked (defeating the purpose of warming his tootsies) or pulls them off, then sucks on his naked toes, or on the socks themselves. Weirdo.

By the way, Jay taught James how to say "Dada" and "Mom" over the weekend. He's getting pretty good at saying them on command. I told him to quit teaching him "Mom" though... I want James to call me "Mama" or "Mommy", not "Mom". That just sounds too grown up. So this week he went back to working on "Mama" with him. However, this morning on the way to work Jay was trying to get him to say "Dada" again, but James was being a stinker. Twice he retorted with "Mama" instead of "Dada". You know I loved that! I thought it was hilarious, but Jay said "Oh yeah? Laugh it up chucklehead!" I guess I'll have to quit whispering "Mama" to him all day long and start working on "Dada" too. We don't want to offend...