Brian's Baptism + Archer's Dedication

April was a very special month for our family spiritually. Brian decided to be baptized at Crossroads and Archer was dedicated there at the end of the month as well. Both were natural next steps for the way our lives are going and perfect ways to tell God how much we love him.

Brian was in charge of organizing everything for his own baptism. I keep our house running but felt that I needed to stay out of this 100%. It was Brian's decision and I wanted him to have complete ownership of it. This meant that nobody was told/invited until possibly the last minute. But we were very thankful that our friend Bill was able to make it and take some awesome pictures for us. Such an awesome friend! I was also honored that Brian asked me if I would baptize him. Apparently we had a conversation at some point 6 or 7 years ago when we first started dating. Brian says I told him he could either start going to church with me or we weren't getting engaged, and certainly not married. I don't remember this at all, but thank goodness he started going to church with me. I'm not sure I could have followed through on my threat!

Laughing because the water was FREEZING.  

You ask "Who is your Lord and Savior?" (Jesus is the correct response). And then baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  

I promise I was helping him up, not holding him under.

Yay!!

A couple days later was Archer's dedication. We weren't familiar with Crossroads' baby dedications or baptisms and were really impressed. Like everything else at our awesome church, they do it up right! There were lovely family and friends there to support us and we had a great lunch at our house afterwards. It was nice to get to relax and have Archer meet more of his Fischer side of the family. A photographer volunteers and takes photos of all the babies and families for each dedication/baptism ceremony. And then gives us all the photos to download for free! How amazing. 

 Each family had to share one word that they would use to describe their baby. We were going to go with "cranky pants" but since that's two words decided to go with "funny." He had really just started to crack us up (and himself) on a daily basis. So smiley and happy (except for that particular day and the couple leading up to it of course).

Funny little man! Brian also said this was the first time he had heard me speak in front of a group of people! How weird is that. 

Chuck Mingo, the head pastor at the Oakley campus, did the ceremony. He's our favorite! We were so happy to have him as a part of the day. 

Archer's God parents, Mary and Brad, joined us on stage. I promise I was there behind Chuck. 

After the service the photographer was set up off the chapel for as many family photos as people wanted. Why didn't we get everyone in on this?!?! Also--look at Archer's adorable little tie!!!

My new favorite family pic. It's going by our front door. :) 

Mary and Brad included this verse in a card to Archer, and I love it. I think it is exactly what we want to teach him, and though not exactly "young" anymore, what we also need to live out for him as an example:

"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity." 1 Timothy 4:12

5 Months

Chunky Monkey,

You've had a big month!! You are such a smart, funny little boy. Every day has been more and more fun with you. This was by far the most challenging bear photo, and we honestly didn't get any great ones before we gave up. You're not quite mobile but moving enough to fall over every two seconds. You're distracted by your toes and your hands and finally noticed that you were sitting on something soft.

Not too bad. You can see he's going for the toes. 

This is how he spent most of his time. Falling over because of grabbing the toes or fingers in the mouth. 

Woah. What IS this thing?! It was literally the first time he's been aware of the bear.

He's over the photo shoot.

At least we can see the 5? 

Here's some highlights from your past month:

You've started eating real foods. You started with avocado and weren't quite sure about it. But you haven't turned down anything yet. Here's what you've tried so far: avocado, banana, applesauce, sweet potato (by far your favorite!), green beans. We've got some sweet peas, chicken and turkey for you to try too. Thanks to our friend Isaac for sharing some of the baby food he didn't need anymore!  (and update since I first wrote this: you and green beans are not friends. We think they made your belly hurt big time. And we were up every 3 hours with you last night while figuring that out!)

Yay sweet potatoes! 

We're starting some basic sign language with you. It's a bummer that you won't start signing back to us for probably two more months at the earliest but I think it'll be worth it in the end. Every day we're using signs for mommy, daddy, milk, all done and kitty. When you're having real food I'm also adding in "more."

You ROLLED OVER!! And back to front first, not the easier front to back. Such an over achiever. You stopped wanting to be swaddled about 3 weeks ago. You started sleeping on your side almost immediately. You also started going backwards with your awesome sleeping habits (apparently there's a 4-month sleep regression). But I think it's back on track now. We've found out you're pretty darn good at putting yourself back to sleep in the middle of the night. You're still getting up once to eat in the middle of the night but I don't mind so much the extra snuggling as long as you go back to sleep for a couple hours. The only challenge now is that you want to sleep on your face. Not just your stomach, but face down on the bed. You are sucking on the sheets, which is gross. And causing these huge wet spots on the bed. And you're flipping so quickly we can't keep up trying to flip you back. We have actually seen you flip from front to back a couple times on the monitor now...but it doesn't make us feel any better. We're trying to just let you do your thing but I seriously can't stop watching you on the monitor!! You've also gotten your legs stuck in the crib slats twice now. Crazy boy!!

On your face. Why can't you just turn your head to the side and make us all feel better?

You have this insane new screeching noise that is seriously ear splitting. You think it's pretty hilarious, which I guess is a good thing. It really bothers the cats though. Vivy has come in to look in your crib and check on you several times now because you really do sound like you are seriously hurt or something. But we can see on the monitor you're just chatting away to yourself in there.

You are getting little fuzzy hairs all over your head. And, they're BLONDE!!!!! I'm pretty excited about that. I'm hoping you stay my little mini-me as long as possible. :) Unfortunately your little chunk of long hairs at the top of your head have still not fallen out so you have some serious comb-over issues when you wake up.

This is a pretty good shot of the long combover hairs in back. 

We also had you dedicated at Crossroads at the end of April. It was a really nice ceremony and there were lots of friends and family there to support us and you. You didn't cry at all which was a relief--it had been a cranky couple days beforehand!

Your current most-used nicknames are roly poly, chunky monkey and silly willy. What can I say? Your mama likes alliteration! You're solidly wearing 9 month clothes too. You're making all your friends look like peanuts. 

My First Mother's Day

I had a wonderful first Mother's Day with my lovely little family. Archer started off the day by going back to sleep at 4am till 8!! It was amazing. He hasn't been sleeping well lately and I'm not guaranteed any good 6-hour stretches like I used to be. I got him up and brought him back to our bed for some snuggles he was a champion snuggler!! He doesn't snuggle on us or on our shoulders very often so I soaked this up:

Off center and blurry but I'll take it! He's started "hugging" us as we like to call it.

Then Brian and Archer gave me a very sweet card. Turns out while I was getting an extra hour of sleep the day before, the boys were having arts and crafts time! I'm a lucky Mom!

This was a card I had already made. It has one big modification.

A fat little baby! Brian wanted to make sure I knew the baby was fat. 

I'm very impressed with Brian's stamping skills! And his bravery with wanting to put INK on a crazy baby's hand!

 Up first for the day was a trip to the zoo.

Archer was THRILLED. He couldn't wait to see all the animals. 

It doesn't matter if Archer slept through the zoo. (Again.) Brian and I like it a lot. Last time we heard the lions roar. It was pretty amazing. This time we saw the cheetahs run (insane) and Lulu the baby giraffe (adorable). We also walked through the kids zoo area. Can't wait to take Archer there so he can feed the goats!

Then we headed to lunch and Graeter's with Brian's parents. He got a cute new hat!

Saturday we took my mom to Benihana for lunch. Archer thought hibachi was the most interesting thing he had ever seen. He was in awe of both the chef and the food on the grill. Not scared of all the noise at all! 

After lunch we went to Natorps to look at some plants for the yard. We need to figure out what on earth we're doing with it. It really needs some help. It was FREEZING at Natorps and it is confusing and there's a million plants and the plants need to be organized by how much sun they need. Not whether it's an annual or perennial. Needless to say we did not come home with any plants. And we're basically more confused than ever. But it's ok. 

We came home and had a little snuggle and photo time with little man before it was time for bed. Archer was super fancy for my first Mother's Day and I may or may not have coordinated my outfit to his. 

Look at my mini me!!

Fancy pants!!

I am so happy to be this little man's mommy. He really is the most wonderful, funny baby boy. I can't imagine my life without him. 

Archer + Avocado = Awesome

So I got a big surprise at Archer's 4-month checkup: the pediatrician said we could start giving him food if we felt like he was showing signs of interest! I didn't think babies started food till sometime around 6 months. Who knew. So my first question was what kind of signs are we talking about? We don't usually eat dinner till he's in bed these days so I'm not sure how much eating he's actually seeing. But following our forks with his eyes, smacking his lips, generally showing interest in us eating are all good things. I don't know that we've necessarily seen those yet but I had a ripe avocado that needed to be eaten so we went for it. And...he loved it!!

What the heck is this Mom?!

 First bite! Took him a bit to keep his head up and not try to also eat his hands.

Woah. 

What do I think about this?! It was difficult to tell for awhile. He was slurping the avocado off really well, but fussing when I took the spoon away. We weren't sure if he missed sucking on the spoon or really wanted more avocado. He never turned his head away or closed his mouth or didn't accept a bite so we figured it was the avocado!

More please!!! He got really good at opening his mouth for bites by the end. 

Not too big of a mess. :) 

And a happy happy boy by the end! We're looking forward to trying out some more tomorrow then giving him a couple days to make sure he doesn't have any weird reactions. After that--bananas are up next! Other than waiting a few days after each new thing the pediatrician said there aren't any real rules to starting him on big boy food. She said that the newest research says not to avoid anything (except honey), and waiting to introduce foods could actually encourage allergies to develop. So it's a little nerve-wracking but we'll be doing peanut butter, seafood, eggs, etc sooner rather than later. 

Love that face!!!