First Weeks

Today marks six weeks since our arrival in Ecuador. We are now living in the house that we found less than two weeks after getting here. I never expected that we would find a permanent home in six weeks, much less be settling into it! As our container has yet to leave the U.S., we are borrowing a few "basics" from the Bible college for the next few weeks (beds, a table, a stove, and a fridge) until our own things arrive. We did purchase a TV the other day -- it was the only major purchase we didn't make before leaving the States. And we signed up for Internet. So, you know, we have the essentials!

We lived at the Bible college for a little over a month. We started Spanish lessons at the Galapagos Spanish School, a few minutes' walk from our apartment. Rusty went in the morning, and I went in the afternoon. We like the school, but it is a pretty good jaunt from our new place, so we may start going to another school that's closer, or even look for a private tutor to come out to the house.

Here are a few pictures of our daily life the last few weeks:

How we watch DVD's without a TV or a DVD player

How we take a bath without a bathtub

How Benjamin eats without a high chair

Our Sawyer bag filter gives us clean water for drinking and cooking.

Clean water -- about a four-day supply

Since I was at home with the boys in the mornings while Rusty was in class, I started home-schooling. Most of our curriculum is still in the U.S., but I did bring the phonics and reading program in our luggage. We are about 3 weeks in, and Alex is reading simple words, and both of the boys are singing the little jingles that we learn for each letter and sound. It's pretty exciting.

Our first day of homeschool

We had our first visitor! Okay, technically, she didn't come to visit us -- Catera was in Ecuador for 3 weeks as part of her graduate program at George Fox University in Oregon. But she spent an evening with us and we enjoyed catching up with each other and telling stories about Japan (Catera was an English teacher with the same school district in Mito, although not at the same time).

Sharing an itty-bitty couch and a bowl of popcorn with Catera

We haven't done much in the way of "touristy" things yet, but we did visit the Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World) one Saturday afternoon, and took the obligatory photo on the Equator! It was a neat place, and it's not too far from our house, so I'm sure we'll visit it many times, especially when we have visitors (hint, hint).

Family photo straddling the Equator

For our anniversary this year, a wonderful couple who are supporters of the work in Ecuador offered to put us up in the Hilton for the night. We left the boys with Josh and Julie and enjoyed a night away in a 5-star hotel. Our room was on the 17th floor, with a gorgeous view of the city. The picture below isn't that clear (it was a rainy morning), but the hill in the center is called the Panacillo, and to the right of that, you can see the spires of the Basillica. Quito is really a very beautiful city. Parts of it remind me so much of Portugal (probably the European influence). And then other parts of it remind me of Africa!

The Eighth Month

Benjamin is now eight months old. It's taken me awhile to get this update posted because I kept forgetting to take pictures, and then, once I did, I had to find a new online photo editing site because Picnik has moved to Google+. I tried out Be Funky and found it to be very similar to Picnik. If you can't shell out the big bucks for Photo Shop (I wish!), this is a reasonable alternative.

Ben's eighth month passed in a blur of activity... we moved to Ecuador on April 12th and have been busily trying to establish ourselves here. Ben celebrated his first Easter just before we left the States; he met his Uncle Josh and Aunt Julie and a passle of cousins; and he cut his first two teeth at about the same time that he came down with roseola (aka "baby measels")! Those were a fun few days. He is so close to crawling. He can get up on all fours and even move his hands and knees, but he generally just stays in one place or even goes backwards, which he finds extremely frustrating! I still nurse him once or twice a day, but he is now bottle-fed for the most part. And of course he is eating solid foods... interestingly, he much prefers to eat what we are all eating rather than the jarred baby food. More flavor, maybe? It's fine by me as jarred baby food is rather expensive here. We are still working on his night-waking, trying to help him learn to sleep through the night. I so look forward to the day when I can count on several hours of uninterrupted sleep each night.

Just a couple of other things that I want to make sure and remember about Benjamin as a baby. For several months now, he has been what I call a "skin-grabber." He will use his little fists to grab handfuls of my skin, usually on my neck or upper arms, and squeeze. He doesn't do it to be mean, of course, but it can be quite painful, and sometimes, he actually gives me bruises or red markings on my skin. Lately, he has also taken to grabbing handfuls of his brothers' hair when they are playing together! They are quickly learning to keep their heads out of reach of his tiny hands!

The other interesting thing that Benjamin has done ever since he was a tiny baby, is sleep with his face covered up by his blankets. He likes to pull the blanket up over his face and burrow down inside it, and this is how he likes to fall asleep. At first, it really freaked me out when I would walk in and find him completely buried in the blanket, but I don't worry so much about it now that he's older.

Here are a couple of pictures of 8-month old Ben:

Quito: Interesting Facts

• Quito is the second highest capital city in the world (the highest being La Paz, Bolivia, which is also in South America). The city sits at a whopping 2,850 meters (about 9,350 feet) above sea level. Some people suffer from altitude sickness when they first arrive in Quito (headaches, nausea and such). We were spared any of these ill effects, but we are still surprised at how easily winded we become when climbing stairs or walking uphill! On a positive note, Rusty was excited to learn that it is easier to lose weight at high altitudes.
• The city spreads out over 50 kilometers long, but only 8 kilometers wide because it is hemmed in by mountains.
• Some of the mountains surrounding Quito are active volcanoes -- including the Pichinchas, twin peaks on which Ecuador won its independence in 1822. Guagua (Baby) Pichincha showered Quito in ash in 1999, but caused no other damage.
• Quito's climate is described as perpetually "springlike." Mornings and nights can be chilly, but things can warm up dramatically in the middle of the day when the equatorial sun comes out from behind the clouds. It is said that Quito is a place where you can experience all four seasons in a single day, and we have certainly found that to be true so far! We are currently in the middle of one of the rainy seasons, which means there is typically a rain storm every day in the late afternoon.
• Quito was the first city in the world to receive the World Heritage Site status from UNESCO (in 1978)
• Like most major cities in third-world countries, Quito suffers from congestion, and the traffic, especially at peak times of the day, can be horrendous. In an effort to curb the problem, the city instituted a system called "Pico y Placa," which restricts certain license plate numbers from driving in the city limits during peak hours on certain days. Our day is Tuesday. We risk getting a ticket and our car impounded if we drive our car on Tuesdays!
• Quito is one of the best cities in South America for learning Spanish, for several reasons. The Spanish spoken here is slower and clearer than the Spanish spoken in other countries. The cost of living is relatively low. And the competition among the many different Spanish schools is fierce, which drives the prices down. We are currently paying $6 per hour for private (one-on-one) Spanish lessons, a great value!

Most of these interesting facts come from our two guidebooks, Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands by Ben Westwood (Moon Handbooks), and Culture Shock! Ecuador: A Guide to Customs and Etiquette by Nicholas Crowder, both available at Amazon.

First Days

We’ve been in Quito nearly two weeks already, so it’s high time for an update! It’s been a busy two weeks settling into life here. We arrived in Quito on April 12th (actually it was early in the morning on April 13th). Our plane was rerouted to the city of Manta on the coast of Ecuador due to bad weather when we were on our approach into Quito. After spending some time on the ground refueling and dealing with a medical emergency (not ours), we were finally able to fly back to Quito and this time, successfully landed. All of our luggage made it intact, and Josh was waiting at the airport to take us to their house.

We spent the first few days living with Josh and Julie (my sister), and it was a nice way to recover from the trip as well as the craziness of the last few days in the States. It also gave us an opportunity to take care of things like making sure we had working cell phones and a drivable vehicle – after sitting for several months, our Land Rover was in need of some TLC, as well as insurance. We learned our way around the Marcum’s neighborhood, and I even made my first foray into a local grocery store. For some reason, grocery shopping is just one of those things that is always completely overwhelming and stressful to me in my first few weeks in a new country. We went to church with the Marcum’s (they attend a church plant in “the valley”) and attended their small group that meets on Wednesday nights. The cousins also enjoyed some concentrated time together, and we went on a couple of fun outings.

After the first week, we moved into a small, furnished, two-bedroom apartment at the EQEB (Quito School of Biblical Studies), which also houses the Colón Church of Christ. Interestingly, this is the second time in our married life that Rusty and I find ourselves living temporarily in a church – the first time was right after we moved back to Japan, when we spent about a month living in the Hitachi-Taga Church of Christ! It is pretty tight quarters, but I think we’ll manage for a few weeks. Our plan was to live here until we find a house and our container arrives. Amazingly, we have already accomplished the first part – finding a house! We thought it would take us much longer to find something both suitable and within our budget. But, the third house we looked at was pretty nearly a perfect fit. Rusty signed the contract on Monday and we will get the keys this Friday. So, technically, we could move in anytime. But we would be sleeping on the floor and cooking over an open fire in the backyard because all of our things are still in the States. The folks at Healing Hands will hopefully be shipping our container sometime next week, but it could still be awhile before it gets here. So, I think we will stay put for the time being.

A good thing about living here at the EQEB temporarily is the location. We are right downtown, and close to many of Quito’s plethora of Spanish language schools. We spent yesterday and today visiting several of them to find out about their prices and services. We hope to make a decision and start classes by next week. I have actually been pleasantly surprised by how much Spanish I understand, thanks to all the time spent studying Portuguese. Speaking is a little more difficult, so I’m looking forward to getting into the classroom and actually learning the Spanish so that I’m not constantly guessing at words and how to pronounce them when I talk to people! Living here, we will also have the opportunity to practice our Spanish with the students and staff.

Here are a few pictures from our first couple of weeks:

Cousins at the Carolina Park

Paddle boats (Carolina Park)

Our Land Rover will fit both our families -- 11 people in all!

Enoch and Benjamin are going to be good buddies!

Eliana and Alex (The kids got their faces painted at an open house at Jana's preschool.)

Jana and Stephen

Michaela

Building my RAFT

Written the week before we left the U.S. for Ecuador:

Recently, while at my parents’ house, I picked up a copy of the book The Third Culture Kid Experience: Growing Up Among Worlds by David C. Pollack and Ruth E. Van Reken (Intercultural Press, 1999). It is a wonderful book, which I highly recommend to anyone who is a TCK* or is raising a TCK. One of the authors, Dave Pollack, came to Kenya when I was a senior in high school to do a weekend Reentry Seminar with all the graduating seniors at Rosslyn Academy. It was something he did every year at the time, trying to give all of us who were getting ready to leave Kenya and head off to college the tools both to leave well and to enter the new phase of our lives well.

There is one tool that has stuck with me through the years, through all of the many transitions I have faced, and that is the idea of building a “RAFT.”

Click here to continue reading.

Stephen is Three!

Stephen turned three at the beginning of April. Since we were busy making the final preparations for our move to Ecuador, I just didn't have it in me to plan a huge, elaborate party. Stephen had been begging to go to Jungle Java again for awhile, so we invited a few of his friends from church to meet us there for a play-date one morning. Then, we headed over to the Livonia church and had lunch on the playground, followed by cake and ice-cream. It was a simple party, perfect for a 3-year old.

Fun at Jungle Java

Blowing out the candles on his "Cars" ice cream cake

I can't believe he's three!

The Seventh Month

Benjamin is now seven months old. He is sitting up very well and starting to rock forward from a sitting-up position to try to get up on his hands and knees. Although he still has a ways to go before he is officially crawling (thank goodness!), he is getting more and more mobile. He has figured out that he can get from point A to point B by rolling over several times, and he is also starting to "army crawl" when he is on his tummy.

Ben continues to eat with gusto anything you put in front of him. This month, he also finally started taking a bottle, much to my relief. I have been having supply issues for awhile, which I think is mostly related to how stressful the last few months have been and how difficult it's been to maintain anything resembling a schedule while traveling. Although I'm grateful to have the option of formula feeding, I also recognize that this is the beginning of the end of my nursing days, and that is bittersweet.

During Ben's seventh month, we went to Chicago for our visas, so now he has an Ecuadorian visa in his passport! How many 7-month olds can say that? I do think it's pretty crazy (and a testament to our globally nomadic lifestyle) that he will have lived on 3 continents before his first birthday. At the end of March, I took Ben in for another well-baby check-up, and he now weighs 17 pounds! He got four more shots, plus an oral vaccine, so we are now mostly caught up.

Speaking of vaccinations, I came home from the doctor visit feeling a little frustrated because all my kids have had vaccines in so many different places, due to all our moving around. It is getting harder to keep track of it all, and harder for the nurses and doctors to figure out exactly what it is they need, especially when you factor in that other countries follow different vaccination schedules than we do in the U.S. For example, in Portugal, the BCG vaccine (for tuberculosis) is still standard at birth (it is not in the U.S. and hasn't been for years), and they start vaccinating for meningitis at 3 months (in the U.S., they wait until junior high school). I have at least 2 different vaccine records for each of my children, and Alex also has his "international yellow book" since he had the yellow fever vaccine before we went to Angola in 2008.

I decided that I needed to find a way to keep a record of all their vaccines in one place. A quick Google search turned up this little gem -- a free downloadable blank vaccine record done in Excel. I love that you can not only print copies and fill them in by hand to take with you to doctor visits, but also save it to your computer. I am planning on creating an electronic version for each of the boys so I always have a back-up in case the paper versions ever get lost or destroyed. Eventually, I plan to do one for Rusty and myself also.

Okay, that was a little off-topic. Here's a picture of 7-month old Benjamin. I swear he gets cuter every month!

Alex is Six!

We finally got around to celebrating Alex's 6th birthday, about one month late. We had a party at Pump It Up, a bounce house, and invited all of his friends from the Livonia Church to celebrate with us. The kids had a great time bouncing on all the inflatables, followed by cake and ice-cream in one of the party rooms.

When we started planning his party, I asked Alex how he felt about using his birthday party as an opportunity to bless other less fortunate children instead of making it all about him and getting a bunch of presents he really doesn't need. I expected a lot of resistance, but he surprised me by being very enthusiastic about the idea. Instead of presents, we asked his friends to contribute money, which we then gave to World Vision, an organization that helps needy children. We sat down with the World Vision gift catalog and Alex picked out a $22 backpack filled with school supplies as his gift of choice. At his party, we collected enough money to purchase 6 backpacks, one for each year of his life! And honestly, he didn't even miss having presents to open! He still got presents from us, from his grandparents, and from the Angola Team, which he opened during a Skype phone call. But no presents at the actual party.

Happy Birthday, Alex! We are so proud of how you are growing and learning, for your tender heart and your energy and enthusiasm for life. We look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you in the years to come!

What We've Been Up To (Road-Trip Edition)

Sometimes, it feels like the last three months have been one giant road-trip. It hasn't, of course. We have been traveling a lot, but it's been more like several shorter trips interspersed with time in Michigan. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to have my parents' house as our haven during this in-between time! We walk in the door after being on the road for awhile, and I just breathe a big sigh of relief. I know it's not always easy on my parents to have 5 extra people around cluttering up their home, especially right now while my mom is going through her cancer treatments, but they are so gracious and they never complain.

As a way of catching up, then, I thought I would just do one huge post about all the places we've been. I should probably mention that we haven't been the greatest about taking pictures during our travels. We take pictures of the "fun" things we do, but we forget to take pictures of people and other activities. I plan to intersperse pictures with commentary here, lest you get the wrong idea about us and think that we've just been gallivanting around the country and playing the whole time. Actually, all of our traveling has been "work-related" -- we just try to do fun things with the kids every once in awhile, otherwise they would drive both of us completely bonkers!

Kids asleep in the car

And there's the other one!

Our first trip was in mid-December. We traveled to Nashville to meet with the missions committee at Hillsboro, our sponsoring church. We also went to Huntsville for a couple of days to see some of Rusty's family -- his uncle and aunt, and his cousin and her family, who are dear friends and also personal supporters. Rick and Marinda Trull, team coaches for the Angola Team, drove up to Huntsville for the day and we spent a morning having coffee and a very good visit with them. On the way back to Michigan, we stopped in Cave City, KY and took the boys to the big dinosaur park there. It was really fun -- if you have a kid who's totally into dinosaurs as Alex is right now, I highly recommend it!

Dinosaur World -- Cave City, KY

In mid-January, we began a three-week long trip. First stop: Somerset, Pennsylvania, to visit the church there that supports us, as well as our friends the Hintons (Jimmy is the preacher at the church). We were there over a Sunday, so Rusty did a presentation during Bible Class and also preached.

Sunday lunch at the Eat 'n Park in Somerset, PA

From Pennsylvania, we began the long drive to Manson, Manitoba. We stopped along the way in Hudson, Wisconsin (just across the river from Minneapolis St. Paul) and stayed two nights with Dale and Vicki Hawley. Dale is a missionary counselor who did some work with the Angola Team in the past when we were doing our training with Missions Resource Network. We really enjoyed our time with the Hawleys. On the day we left, we took the boys to the Mall of America. We played a round of mini-golf, ate lunch in the food court, went to the Lego store, and rode a couple of rides at the indoor amusement park.

Mini-golf at the Mall of America -- Bloomington, MN

We left Hudson and drove to Fargo, North Dakota, where we stayed the night with some friends of the Hawleys, who graciously opened their home to complete strangers! What a gift it is to be a part of God's family and to have brothers and sisters literally everywhere in the world! Then, it was on to Manson, Manitoba to visit Rusty's Uncle Ken and Aunt Rae and the church there that has started supporting us. We spent almost a week with them, and it was lovely to just be in one place for a few days! Aunt Rae spoiled us with all sorts of yummy treats like her homemade Cinnamon Buns; Uncle Ken loaded us up with a few things for our future home, including Rusty's grandma's old oak dining table; the boys got to play in the snow; we saw Kemmy and Christina, two of Rusty's canuck cousins; and Rusty did a presentation and also preached at the church on Sunday.

With Uncle Ken and Aunt Rae -- Manson, Manitoba

Snow angels -- Manson, Manitoba

Leaving Manson, we drove to Winnipeg to do a presentation at the Central Church of Christ, a possible future supporter. Then we drove back to Michigan, but we took several days to get there and stopped in Wisconsin Dells for two nights on the way. It was a nice way to end the trip. We stayed in a hotel with a nice little pool with kiddie slides and fountains. And one day, we bought day passes to one of the bigger resorts and spent all day playing in their big water park and indoor amusement park.

Bumper cars -- Wisconsin Dells, WI

Mt. Olympus Indoor Water Park -- Wisconsin Dells, WI

After a couple of weeks in Michigan, we hit the road again, this time heading south. Our first stop was Nashville, TN, where we spent two weeks with our sponsoring church, the Hillsboro Church of Christ. It was wonderful to reconnect with all our friends there and make some new ones! I wish that we had taken more pictures of our time there, but we were literally so busy running hither and thither that we just never thought about it. We had dinner with folks from church nearly every night, and the days were taken up with doctor and dentist appointments (Rusty even had his wisdom teeth out!), errands, meetings, and playdates for the boys. I met up with my dear childhood friend Rebekah one morning, and we enjoyed catching up on each others' lives. We had lunch with Rusty's Uncle Dennis in Clarksville one day. The church had a lovely send-off for us on our last Sunday there. They showed a video of our family where we shared some of our plans, interspersed with some of the footage Rusty shot on his survey trip in November. Then they said a prayer of blessing over us, followed by singing "Surround Us Lord," all of this while huge flakes of snow were falling softly outside the windows. It's a memory that will stay with me for a long time.

Stephen getting his teeth cleaned -- Nashville, TN

With Uncle Dennis -- Clarksville, TN

From Nashville, we drove to Memphis and spent a few days reconnecting with friends there. We visited the Park Avenue church on Sunday morning and Rusty gave a short update on us at the end of the service. Then we drove down to the Thyatira church for their evening service where Rusty preached and shared about our plans. Afterwards, we had dinner with several of the young families, our good friends when we lived there. On Monday, we met up with the Gearsons and Jin and Gina, friends from our grad school days. We went to the park and then had dinner at Chick Fil-A. Alex was so excited to spend time with Mackenzie and Esther again. I couldn't believe how much they have all grown up in the last few years.

Mackenzie and Alex -- Memphis, TN

Unfortunately, the evening did not end well as Alex fell while climbing on the outside of the play structure and busted his head open! He was bleeding pretty profusely (I am told head wounds do that), and 911 was called, so the firetrucks and EMT's showed up at Chick-Fil-A. They checked him over, bandaged up his head, and then we drove ourselves down the road to the closest hospital. Several hours and 10 stitches later, Alex hopefully has a better understanding of why it's not a good idea to climb on the outside of the play structure! This all happened the day before he turned 6, so it was definitely a memorable birthday. On his actual birthday, we went to the fire station that had responded to the 911 call, and the boys got the grand tour and got to sit in all the trucks. They thought that was fun.

Alex with Evertt Huffard, who shares his birthday -- Memphis, TN

At the fire station -- Germantown, TN

From Memphis, we drove to Oklahoma City and spent almost a week there. We so enjoyed seeing all our dear friends from our time in Japan as AET's (I wish we had taken more pictures!), as well as Robbie, Rusty's nephew, who is a student at OC this year. In addition, Rusty did a presentation at a church in the Oklahoma City area on Sunday morning and was able to connect with many missions-minded folks on campus at OC.

Lunch at Pops with Robbie and Cat -- Edmond, OK

All the kids at the "Japan Peeps" get-together at the Lj's - Edmond, OK

From Oklahoma City, we drove back to Michigan, and upon our arrival, discovered that the final piece of paperwork we needed in order to apply for our Ecuadorian visas had finally arrived. So, 10 days later, we were packing our bags again, this time to make the trip to Chicago to the Ecuadorian consulate. We stayed with our friends the Mearses in Naperville and so enjoyed our time with them. On Monday, we trekked in to downtown Chicago, dropped off the paperwork and the payment at the consulate, went to Gino's and had Chicago deep-dish pizza, then went back and picked up our passports with Ecuadorian visas stamped inside them. It was ridiculously easy!

 Walking the streets of downtown Chicago -- Chicago, IL

So, the fact that we have visas now means that The Great Road-Trip is coming to an end at last. We are aiming to be in Ecuador by mid-April. Rusty is in Nashville this week getting all of our stuff ready for shipment. I stayed in Michigan with the kids and am working on a hundred other little details, like plane tickets. It's hard to believe after all this time that we are just a few short weeks away from actually leaving!

There are lots more pictures of all our travels on Facebook. Click here to view the entire album.

The Sixth Month

Well, after I publish this post, I will be caught up on Benjamin's monthly milestones... for the next 3 days anyway! (Sigh.) It's hard to believe that he's almost 7 months old. And then I look at Alex, my SIX-year old (How is that even possible?), and I think, He's a third of the way to 18! And then I freak out just a little.

But, I digress. Benjamin's 6th month was again spent on the road (road trip post coming soon, promise). He is a great little traveler -- all our kids are -- but he does get tired of being in his carseat so much! Towards the end of our trips, when we have been in the car for days on end, he starts crying every time I put him in. The poor kid probably wonders if we know how to do anything other than schlep him around all over creation.

In the 6th month, we continued with solid foods, introducing rice cereal, peaches, plums, prunes, peas, carrots, and sweet potato. Ben visited our pediatrician in Nashville for a check-up and 6 shots! (We are trying to get him caught up, since we missed the 4-month check-up... I know, I know, bad mom.) He weighed in at 15 pounds, 8.5 ounces, more than double his birth weight, and measured 27 inches long. He also met his Great Uncle Dennis while in Nashville.

The big milestone during month 6 was, of course, learning to sit up on his own. I am always so glad when my babies learn to sit alone! They seem to stay content longer when they can sit up and play and observe everything that's going on around them. And the bald spot on the back of the head starts disappearing when they aren't laying on their backs so much! Being able to sit up also changes the bathtime routine -- Benjamin can sit up and splash in the water, which he thinks is great fun, and he now takes baths with his big brothers more frequently.

Benjamin's 6-month birthday was pretty memorable, as it was the day that Alex fell while climbing on the playplace at Chick-Fil-A and busted his head open. More details coming when I blog about our road-trip, but suffice it to say that we spent several hours in the ER, and Alex ended up with 10 stitches! Life with boys is never dull!

 6 months old!

The Fifth Month

A large part of Benjamin's fifth month was spent on the road. (Look for a future post about all our recent travels). In fact, we celebrated his fifth-month birthday at the end of January in Wisconsin Dells, but the pictures below were taken a few days later after we got back to my parents' house in Michigan.

Ben celebrated his first New Year during this month, although he actually slept right through the big moment! He met his Uncle Ken and Aunt Rae, actually his great-uncle and great-aunt, and other relatives while we were in Canada. We finally had to retire the cradle, as he was just getting too big and wiggly for it, and moved him back into a pack-n-play. The other major milestone this month included the introduction of solid foods. I held him off as long as possible, but when your baby starts watching you eat with rapt fascination and actually trying to grab food out of your hand, then it's just time! He actually had his first taste of mashed banana on his fifth-month birthday.

During Ben's fifth month, I noticed a gradual decrease in his spitting up (yay!), followed by an increase in drooling. However, if he is anything like my other two, the first tooth is still months away from making an appearance. That's okay by me -- nursing is not nearly as comfortable for me once the teeth come through! He loves to chew on his hands and feet and is getting better and better at using his hands to pick up toys and get them into his mouth.

There were so many great pictures from our photo shoot this month that is was hard to choose just two. He was in a good mood when I took these, plus he had his older brother standing nearby acting crazy and making him laugh!