Houston had a nice first Christmas up in Virginia at Gramsey and Papa’s house. Much like Thanksgiving, things started off a bit rough (i.e., his sleeping patterns were all out of whack), but got progressively better as the days passed. The whole family, though, is pretty darn burned out on traveling. Packing took me an entire day and a half for a five-day, four-night trip. Ridiculous! So if you happen to have a yearning to see Houston (or Stephen and me), you bes’ be trekking our way ’cause we’re doing the homebody thing for at least a good long while.

Granny and Grumps came to get their Houston fill on New Year’s Eve. They spent a couple nights with us, showering Houston with love and many gifts from the family, ringing in 2008 with Stephen and me, helping us tend to Houston, and giving me the opportunity to sleep in a bit. Click here to see all the December pics.

Houston has been eating finger foods (or at least attempting to) since he got the okay from his pediatrician at his six-month appointment on December 28, and he has also moved on to stage-two foods. So far, his finger foods have included rice-rusk treats, sweet potato and peach puffs, Cheerios, toast and banana, while his new pureed foods have included yogurt, berries, corn, peach cobbler, guava, spinach and other yummy stuff. Houston has really taken to eating any and all pureed foods without any hesitation. He also likes the finger foods, but cannot yet put them into his mouth himself. He’s great about letting me do it, but I think the process of getting actual food down his throat and into his belly becomes a little tedious after a few minutes, and his bear-like grunts let me know to move on to another more efficient food item. As of his last appointment, Houston weighed just over 18 pounds, he was 28 1/4″ long and his head was 18″ around. He is in the 95 percentile for length and the 75 percentile for weight. Yep, he is one long and skinny little man. Knowing that, as well as the fact that he has grown 7 1/4″ in six months (more than an inch a month … yowzee!), I have been trying diligently to get his food intake to a healthy level, upping both his solids and breastfeeding. It’s seriously a full-time job just feeding that boy! Plus, the more satisfied he is food-wise, the better he sleeps at night. His sleeping had really never been a problem until recently when he awakened in the middle of a few nights seemingly famished. We nipped that in the bud asap. Click here to see the few January photos thus far.

P.S. We are taking our Mac into the shop to get some work done on it, so this may be the last blog entry for a while.