Happy 6 Month Birthday

Happy Six Month Birthday to our sweet William James! It is AMAZING how much he has grown and changed in such a short amount of time. I recently boxed up his preemie, newborn, and 0-3 month clothes, and it is so hard to believe he was so, so tiny! It is already hard to remember what life was like without our sweet man; however, I do think it involved a lot more sleep!! Here are some pictures documenting parts of his first 6 months; some are from nice cameras and some from my iphone.

Sleeping peacefully in the NICU; I could just eat up that beautiful face! Our sweet friends Josh and Katie blew this picture up and brought it to the hospital for us to have. It was so thoughtful and is up in his room now.

We call this his "Grandpa face." He looks so wrinkly and somewhat confused here!

First time trying to eat and being burped. One of the NICU nurses showed us this technique for burping Will; he doesn't seem like he enjoyed it much!

Does it get any sweeter than this? Will took a while to get the whole suck, swallow, breath idea down.

After 15 days in the NICU, we are finally home! 15 days doesn't sound very long looking back now, but when we were there, it seemed like we were never going to make it out. We are so, so grateful for a healthy baby boy to bring home!

Here Will is on his ONE month birthday. Will had REALLY bad acid reflux that caused him to SCREAM about 2-3 minutes into every feeding. It was trying to say the least. We eventually found the miracle drug Prevacid that really helped him out. He still cried a lot, but at least I knew he was getting all the food he needed. Our doctor told us preemies are just fussier in general, however I think it may just be a "baby thing" the more I talk to other parents!

Not a great picture, but this was Will's VERY FIRST SMILE at his momma! He was six weeks and 3 days when he gave me this grin. I was so glad to have my phone right by me to capture this moment. He didn't smile frequently until he was about 8-9 weeks.

I am including this picture for two reasons.

1. I thought this little outfit was SO cute on him!

2. Our sweet guy has quite the temper on him; in the NICU our nurses kept telling us he had a quick temper, but we never really saw it there and brushed the comment off. Apparently, they knew what they were talking about because we saw it pretty soon after we got home. He is getting better now, but if he wants something...to eat, a toy, to be held....

he lets us know pretty quickly!

Will LOVES the bath and he recently started LOVING to eat/suck on his feet. It is actually pretty amazing at the flexibility he has!

He started sitting up at 5 months for REALLY short periods of time and gets better every time we try it. He is still working on it at 6 months, but he is getting a lot more stable and sure of what he's doing.

Will also recently started loving being in his bouncer. He also loves his exersaucer his Great Grandpa and Grandma got him. He is really starting to observe the world around him and loves being able to see what is going on. As I type this, he is bouncing away, babbling, and playing with the toys on the bouncer!

We very recently started trying rice cereal and baby food. He is getting better at it and pretty much likes everything we have tried. At the suggestion of our doctor, we tried prunes first because the poor boy used to go 9-10 days between pooping. He surprisingly liked them. Since then we have tried carrots and squash; both he seems to enjoy!

This was our first attempt with carrots; Will sneezed and got it EVERYWHERE!

We have Will's six month appt. on the 29th, so we will see how big he has gotten! I do know he has already TRIPLED his birth weight!!!

We are incredibly grateful God has allowed us to become the parents of the sweetest, cutest boy around!