6 months old!

How? How is this sweet sweet baby half a year old? Since I am not great about keeping up with the blog I am going to upload a ton of pictures to help ME remember what has happened in the past 3 months since I've updated on Mr. H-man (one of his many nicknames). Currently he is 28.5 inches long, 18lbs, 2oz, and healthy! In the past month he's had a stomach bug and a bad cold, so we're hoping to stay healthy for a while! He is 98th percentile for height/length (no surprise there) and 61st for weight. 

                                                                   First aquarium trip!

First trip to the Varsity!

 Hendrix was baptized on August 30. 

It was a special day!

 He got to celebrate with his sister and cousins! They love him so much!

 Hendrix got to go to the Hot Air Balloon Festival at Callaway Gardens!

 Life is busy, but we love to spend time just hanging out together. Harper wanted to take a "family selfie". Haha!

Hendrix's first day of "school". 

 These two love each other so much. He tolerates his sister's antics pretty well!

Nap time with these two is such a sweet time for me, I love that they both enjoy "reading".

 First Auburn game of the season (an away game).

 First tailgate!

First football game! War Eagle!

 Second aquarium trip! I braved the aquarium with two kids by myself!

 He really is a super happy, easy going kid!

 He can hold his bottle by himself for a while, but we still feed him most of the time.

He's getting better sitting up! He loves to play by throwing/swiping the toys off the tray and having us pick them back up. He LOVES toys that make noise when moved (i.e. rattles, jingle toys, etc). 

 He also loves playing with the remote control. This was when he was sick with the stomach bug!

Here he is at his doctor's appointment for the bad virus, happy as a clam (until they swabbed his nose!).

 First trip to the pumpkin patch!

 First Halloween! A shark and a jelly fish!

 First train ride at the Montgomery Zoo.

 The fan at the zoo! Hendrix got to go for his cousins' birthday party!

 First time trying rice cereal. Clearly it was not his favorite! We've since tried carrots and he does like those better.

Celebrating Granddaddy's birthday! 

 He rolls from front to back and back to front. He can get up on all fours and scoots a bit but we still aren't coordinated enough to crawl (thankfully!).

 The day he turned 6 months old he started sitting up!

I couldn't resist this one! He loves anything his sister does. He pesters her when he gets to her stuff! And it's only just begun! ha!

Hendrix, there are a million things I want you to know. I hope that you always keep your happy, joyful spirit. I hope you always know that you are loved. And as much as Daddy, Harper, and I love you God loves you immeasurably more. That is so hard for me to understand most days. Sometimes though, when I am tired and you are fussy, I am thankful my imperfect love for you is covered with God's grace and that HE loves you fully and perfectly and unconditionally. You are loved, sweet boy, you are loved. 

5 (aka A Love Letter to My Firstborn)

Day 1! Welcome to the world!

One year old! About to sneak some food at your party, I think!

Two! What a precious girl!

Three years old! You requested strawberry cake again this year. 

Four years old and fearless!

Harper,
The day I found out that you'd be joining our family I instantly felt joy, fear, and anticipation. And I've felt all of those emotions throughout the time I was pregnant with you and through all stages of your development. I am not sure why but 5 has been a harder number for me to swallow. We've been anticipating it for so long, planning, but I've been fearing it, too. 5. Five fingers, a whole hand! Half of a decade!

Right now you look up to me so much. You trust me. You believe I can do anything! When we talked about not having a big party this year and instead celebrating with family your one request was to have a princess castle cake like the one in Publix. Then you decided you wanted to MAKE a princess castle cake with me. That you have that much confidence in my (seriously lacking) cake decorating skills is amazing. And I know I will fail you. And I already have. But I am so thankful that God loves you more than even I do. And he loves me. And even though I will fail and even though I fear so much I know that He is so good and He loves us more than we could ever ask or imagine.
You are SO amazingly kind. Though you, like all of us, have your moments, you continue to astound your Daddy and I with how sweet and thoughtful you are. You already have birthday presents planned for all the upcoming family birthdays until next May! You love your brothers so much and are fiercely protective of both of them. When we talk about someone who is sick or hurting or sad you stop everything and insist that we pray for them. You want to take action immediately to help. Your are such a do-er. And your Daddy and I both struggle with this, it amazes us that from the time you were barely able to put words together to form sentences you've been praying for people and wanting to go and help. Your drive and persistence and bossiness assertiveness all come together in a beautiful package that makes your such a caring person.
And you are brilliant! We are constantly amazed at what a great vocabulary you have, how much you know about birds and trees and flowers and animals, how you can retell a story we've read once from memory. You still love going to school so much and asked to go on your birthday even though I offered to let you play hooky! At school you guys are learning to journal. You can identify all of your alphabet, know some sight words, can count up to at least 50, maybe higher (and you always want to know what number is bigger than 100, bigger than 1,000, etc). You want to read so badly and are so concerned that you "can't read" but have faith that your Grandmother will teach you since she helps people who can't read. We try and tell you that you ARE reading, just not whole books yet, but you don't believe us!
You LOVE gymnastics still. Now you are getting to go on the high bar and beam and though you need to know the coach is there to grab her hand, you are fearless once you get to the end of the beam and swan dive off into the pit. You have also been asking to play soccer but we are only doing one activity at a time, so we'll see how the gymnastics thing goes first.
Harper- our family is so blessed to have you in our lives. It is hard to remember what my life was like without you in it. Certainly less boring and less loving. You still tell me many times a day that you love me and that I am beautiful. :-) You make my heart so happy. Happy birthday sweet girl!
WE LOVE YOU!

3 Months Old!

I really think someone is pushing fast forward on the remote control for my life. How is my sweet baby already 3 months old? I feel more sad about this milestone than the last several. Maybe because I go back to work next week and I know time will seem to go by even faster, though I know the time I have with Hendrix and with Harper will be more quality time.
We packed a LOT into the past month so I'll use pictures to help me remember what we've done! He doesn't go to the doctor this month so no stats, but he is growing like a weed! So glad he is healthy. And the reflux medication is helping! Thank goodness!

Hendrix got to participate in his first Cow Appreciation Day at Chik-fil-A. He was sad he didn't get to partake in the food!

Big month of firsts! First trip to the beach!

This little boy LOVES taking baths! I have a feeling he will be a little fish when he gets old enough to learn how to swim!

He likes tummy time now, no screaming. But it isn't very interesting and often he works so hard holding his 95th percentile head up he eventually falls asleep! Ha!

Celebrating my mom's birthday!

 These two love each other so much!

It seriously makes my mama heart burst when I see how much they love each other!

And this one! Oh, be still my heart. She loves 'reading' and I hope we can pass this on to him as well!

Hendrix would like to add that sometimes his sister loves him a little too much. Here she shared her hair bow with him. He was not amused!

Hendrix is so snuggly. He has trouble sleeping when not swaddled, but will easily fall asleep if he can cuddle with this soft lovie. I am so glad that he loves to snuggle with me, too!

Hendrix added two new states this month! Georgia and Tennessee. We got to see dear friends from college (some that live in Nashville, some that were visiting from Texas!). It is always such a joy to see friends that we don't get to see nearly as often as we like AND to get to see all of our kids becomes friends, too!

Last picture! That is Jason on the left and Hendrix on the right, both wearing the same outfit. They obviously favor! (Though Jason was fatter!)

I really don't know how to put into words how thankful I am to be able to parent this sweet boy. God gave us such an amazing gift at exactly the right time, though a year ago I was terrified and excited all at the same time, wondering if I was emotionally ready to be mom to another child. I pray that Hendrix keeps his sweet spirit, that he and Harper will always share such a special bond, and that he will grow to love the Lord with joy and passion!