A Great Dad

Isn't this a sweet picture?! It was taken while we were in Cheyanne with the Leakes for Thanksgiving.

Richard is such a wonderful dad and he loves playing with Marshall and Marshall loves playing with his daddy. Every day when Richard gets home Marshall is all smiles.

I know Richard wishes he could be home more, but he makes great use of the time he is with us. Thanks Richard for being such a great dad-we love you!

A Marshall Update

Well, here I am, back again, to share some great pictures of our cute little boy and lots of random little moments. Marshall will be six months old this week and I cannot believe how fast the time has gone! He is growing up so quickly and learning new things every day! Here's what he's been up to lately.

Marshall loves his exersaucer. This week he just started grabbing the toys that hang and he loves them. Each time he pulls on them they play songs and he just gets a kick out of it.




Last weekend we went to the Wisconsin Dells with three other families and Marshall had his first experience in a swimming pool. He wasn't too fond of it, but I wasn't expecting him too crazy about it since he still doesn't really love his bath. I definitely plan on getting him a swimming suit this summer and we will be spending lots of time in kitty pools. :) So here are some pictures from the pool and one other cute one from the weekend.

Richard just about killed me when he saw this picture. He was not thrilled to see Marshall wearing big, pink, sunglasses, but I just couldn't resist. Grace, a little girl we were with in the Dells, was sporting these sunglasses almost all weekend. She was kind enough to put them on Marshall for a little photo shoot. :)

Last week Marshall came down with a pretty bad cold. He is all better now, but for a couple days he had a fever and just wanted to sleep. This resulted in some interesting sleeping positions. One morning he fell asleep while I was feeding him rice cereal. Once his eyes closed he kept opening his mouth for the cereal. He actually almost finished it before he completely conked out. What a sweetheart-I love him!

Last week we also had his crib mattress propped up so he could breath better so we also had the bumper pads off. One afternoon when he was down for a nap I went in to check on him and this is what I found...

Here is a video of Marshall's first experience with sweet potatoes. He was not the biggest fan at first, but now he loves them and also enjoys peas, applesauce, and prunes-what a big boy!

Here's one more video and the explanation behind it. Marshall always rolls his ankles when he gets excited, which I actually think a lot of babies do, but regardless, I just love it! So whenever it is time to eat or whenever he sees a toy he wants his little ankles just start moving. Anyway, one night during dinner I decided to snap a little video so I could always remember his little baby feet making tiny circles in the air. I'm probably the only person who cares about this, but here it is anyway. :)

Leake Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Five Months Old!

Our little Marshall is growing up, and it is breaking my heart! I can't believe that he is five months old-time is flying by! The other day I was looking at pictures from the day he was born and I was missing my tiny little baby, okay so he wasn't really that small to begin with, but I could still cradle him in one arm.
Anyway, after being saddened by how fast he is growing and changing I started to think about all the things he is doing now that I love that he didn't do as a newborn.
For example, he now sleeps about 10-11 hours straight at night-I am absolutely loving it and he definitely didn't do that as a newborn!

He is also so interactive. He loves to play with us and we can always get great smiles and hearty laughs out of him. He is also getting really good at grabbing his toys and hanging onto them.
Marshall also loves his rice cereal. He is eating about 1/4 of a cup in the morning and again at night. He did go through a little phase of wanting to hold the spoon and never letting go which made feeding him a little frustrating. But, now he is much better and realizes that the best way to get food in his mouth is to let us hold the spoon.



He is also rolling over a lot now, although he has yet to realize he can roll off of his stomach to his back, but he definitely has the back to stomach roll mastered.
He is also getting pretty good at sitting up with minimal support; he's a strong little guy!
So, all in all, it really is great that Marshall is five months old. We love him so much and we are grateful he's here!

Bubble Lips and Laughs with Dad

Marshall has mastered bubble lips! Well, probably not mastered, we were just really lucky to get this on video!

Rice Cereal and all of December!

Marshall is four months old-time is flying by for me! He had his four month check-up last week and once again checked out completely healthy! He weighed in at 14 lbs. 11 oz. (50%) and measured 26 inches long (80%). He is a growing boy and Richard is hoping that he keeps growing lengthwise.

The pediatrician told us that we could start him on rice cereal anytime now so I tried it for the first time on Friday. He took to it pretty well and sometimes I couldn't get it in his mouth fast enough. As soon as he would see the spoon he would open his mouth and his little tongue would just start fishing around, it was so cute. Here is a little video clip of it all, and you'll have to disregard the pink spoon-it wasn't until I was done that I realized what color the spoon was! Also, please note that I was feeding him and recording all at the same time; I was quite impressed with myself. :)

OK, so I have been trying to upload this video for a day and I can't get it to work. So, I will keep trying and hopefully I will have it up to morrow, but for now, here's the rest of the post.

Marshall has also recently discovered his hands and feet. He usually only looks at his feet when he is sitting down, but he loves his hands and will look at them anytime-who knew five little fingers could be so fascinating!

Here are just a few more random Marshall pictures...do they come any cuter?

Diaper changes with dad usually result in crazy things!

Marshall and his little dog we have named Walter.


I love this little guy!

Now for a bunch of Christmas pictures...

And lastly, I would just like to document that we do indeed live in a very cold place. On Wednesday we had a high of -5, and with the wind chill we were fluctuating between -30 and -40! Here is a picture of the door in our building that goes out to the balcony-talk about frosted window panes, more like frozen window panes!

Thanksgiving and Random Tidbits

Holy cow, time flies! Sorry it has been so long since our last post, who knew that one child could keep us so busy! We have had a great few weeks and have much to share, so here it goes...

Thanksgiving

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Cheyenne with Richard's family. It was a pretty quick trip, but it was great to be all together with the Leake's. We spent our time talking, playing games, watching movies, and of course, eating great food. Marshall was able to meet his four little girl cousins, for now he is very outnumbered. :)

Marshall with Mara, Teia, and Becca

Unfortunately we didn't get one with Katelin, Marshall's newest cousin. We'll have to get them together during Christmas.

While we in Cheyenne we also took family pictures. This is Marshall after the picture festivities..I guess we wore him out. So, being in the picture spirit, we put him with this giant teddy bear for a few more shots...what a sweetie. :)

Three Months Old and a Thumb Sucker

That's right folks, Marshall turned three months old on Friday and he has also turned into a thumb sucker! He has always enjoyed sucking on his fist, but yesterday morning he discovered he didn't have to put his whole fist in his mouth, he could just suck on his thumb. He will still take a binkie, but if that's not around, most likely his thumb will be in his mouth. Richard is less than thrilled with this new development. I'm not too bothered by it, seeing as I also sucked my thumb, and I still turned out okay. :)

Our Little Reindeer



A couple weeks ago Richard found this little outfit and couldn't resist buying it...and who could blame him! We had our branch Christmas party last night so of course we had to dress Marshall up. He looked SO cute and received many compliments. Unfortunately, he was asleep when Santa arrived at the party, so he didn't get to experience the whole Santa thing this year, we'll look forward to that next year.

Smiles and Laughs for Mom

Marshall is a big smiler now and we have started to get some semi-laughs out of him. He is so much fun and makes us laugh too. Yesterday I discovered another way to get smiles and laughs, so here it is, enjoy!