3 months!!!

Our lil Jake is 3 months old-he's officially out of newborn clothes and wearing size 2 diapers!  AAAH! It's actually really fun to watch him grow up and develop more and more of his lil personality so it's not too sad.
Everyone asks us is it jake? or jacob?  We figure the more the names/nicknames the more the love-we're not picky and call him everything from: Jacob, Jake, J, Jaker breaker, turkey feather (shrug, ask code), stinker, buddy, and kiddo.
Jake's quirks:
-he always loves to rest his right hand, and only his right hand, behind his head and then starts to scratch his head like he has an itch.  This can be slightly problematic because I'm still afraid to use the baby finger nail clippers and so I file his nails down but it's hard to keep up with his ever growing nails so I have to keep an eye on him so he doesn't scratch himself to hard.
-He has started to discover and play with his tongue-sticking it in and out and rolling it around in his mouth and while he's at it, he is extremely efficient at making bubbles.  99% of his pics show him showcasing this talent.
-He is a champ at sleeping in his own room and only wakes up once between 9:30-6:00.  There was even a night last week where he slept all the way through til 7 and it was heavenly.
-He's also kind of slowed to more of a 2.5-3 hour feeding schedule ever since I tried to structure his time a little more so that he has his awake time right after he eats and then once he starts to get fussy-nearing around 2 hours from his last feeding I put him down for a nap that way he's happy and refreshed for his next feeding. it has been great so far.
-He rolls on his side now and often sleeps in that position.
-He struggles off and on with a lil bit of eczema and cradle cap but they're both generally mild and can be taken care of with a lil lotion and a lil head and shoulders.
-He still doesn't like tummy time very much but we have the bumbo now so I figure as he sits up more and more and strengthens his neck muscles more, then maybe he'll like tummy time more....
-He has the cutest smiles that just erupt and fill his whole face, and we've started to see a few mini examples of laughter
-He's starting to try to reach out towards things sometimes so I think real interactive playing is just around the corner
-He still has his grey/blue eyes!! (I say I don't care but I just think it would be fun for him to keep his daddy's eyes)
-He likes to suck on his hands and especially his thumb-it's really cute and we've sort of given up on the binkie thing....i mean when he's fussy and needs help falling asleep sometimes we'll turn to it but he'd much rather suck on his hand and I'm ok with it. A- we never have to worry about losing his hand or running out and buying an extra one in the middle of the night, B- I sucked my thumb and I was fine, stopped eventually and with jake being our child we KNOW he's going to need braces no matter what we do so I'm not too worried :)
-He coos and makes fun noises with his mouth all of the time.  I've heard guh's, kuh's, buh's, and all the different vowels.  My favorite thing to do is lay him on his back and lay on my tummy close to his face and we just look at each other and talk to each other.

It's been a CRAZY 3 months but we're so happy that Jake is a part of our family and is such a happy,mellow, kid!

We met daddy for lunch at a cool chinese restaurant near his work and jake was so good-the servers just loved him.

like I said, notice his right hand...

                                                                         smilin' before church...

a rational alarmist

yup, that's me.  I didn't used to be quite so bad, but it seems that with the addition of people I love in my life it gets worse-start to worry more because there's more at stake.  But I'm rational about it...at least, I am able to full on recognize that i'm being ridiculous and that the thing I'm worrying about is 99.9% NOT the case.  It still doesn't make the panicky/nagging worried feelings go away tho, even if I know I'm being silly and irrational.

Code is a big help in this regard though.  He's my rock.  I can open up to him (I got over the whole "feeling stupid when I share my irrational worries with him" a long time ago), plus he knows that deep down I know it's dumb and silly so he doesn't think I'm crazy, but just knows I need to hear someone else telling me that everything is going to be ok and that I'm worrying over nothing and offers perspective.

I feel like I get these two bipolar sides from my parents' influences.  My mom is the worrier-if anything can go wrong she's aware of it (and tho she might not say it out loud- she's half-thinking to herself that it's probably going to happen).  When she found out I was going to a mission in Russia she was instantly concerned about the affects of trinoble, and when we were thinking about moving to new jersey with exxon's first job offer she some how found out that there was a nuclear plant nearby....maybe she just has a nuclear phobia.....).  Which in fairness to her, I think honestly this is a textbook common defense mechanism for moms-does it make us fun and fancy free?  No, but it sure helps when the impossible has happened and we're on top of it because we've anticipated every possible scenario and our husbands think....wow....she's super mom...where can I get a bag like that? (anyone know the movie? it's vague so I'll just tell you- one fine day).  But until that super mom moment we just look like over planners/worriers and our husbands seem fun and spontaneous....

The rational/logical- it's not a big deal, it'll be fine- side of me definitely comes from my dad.  As a kid, his confidence was contagious.  We could be driving somewhere and mom is fumbling for the GPS and worrying out loud about where we're going to next, while my dad would say- don't worry I'll figure it out.  Even though I don't know the street name, I know the direction I need to go and we'll find our own way-it's all good.  Definitely NOT a panicker, and as a kid I never panicked when dad was around either cause what could go bad when dad was there-he knows what he's doing etc.

Now 90% of the time in most areas of life I lean towards the whatever-go-with-the-flow-it'll-all-work-out mentality of my dad.  if given the right conditions though-an unexplained ailment, or-now that I have jacob- I just have to hear about different things that have happened to other parents. For example thinking his eczema is ring worm, or hearing about SIDS, or a delayed autism diagnosis and suddenly I'm researching the details hoping to find some sort of stipulation so that I can instantly rule out any possibility in Jacob's case.  And the whole time I'm obsessing over it and thinking how awful it would be I'm fully aware of how silly I'm being.  That most likely everything is and will forever be FINE with jacob, and that even if something was wrong, there's nothing we can do til real symptoms show anyway so why worry all the time and ruin the fun and memories we could be making now?

See?  Rational alarmist.  Needless to say I'm constantly regaining a testimony of faith and hope and that worrying only shows a lack of faith in God's plan for me/my family.  To trust in Him (not that that means nothing bad will ever happen), but that everything is in His hands and no matter what happens in our lives, good or bad, I can deal with it with His help.

In lighter news my dress came and I LOVE it!  I think I need to wear something like a shirt/tank top etc underneath cause it will be cold and I don't want to wear a cardigan over it and cover up it's cuteness...and a slip, but otherwise it's awesome and I'm so happy that I fit in the small no problem :)  Can't lie, that feels pretty good.

oh yeah, and I made this way cool craft at our church's women's activity. It was way fun!  I thought my hand was going to slip and I was going to power sand my face but it was still fun.

little of this little of that

So what's up in the Nolden household you ask?  Oh not much, just feel like I haven't posted recently enough in here.  Jake is still a champ when it comes to sleeping at night to which we are very grateful.  We recently got a bumbo seat so we'll see if we can't get him sitting up good-he holds his head pretty well though his whole upper body is a different thing entirely.

hmm...for some reason I can't focus my thoughts so I'm just going to post random pics of my cute boys:

(you like pics better anyway right? haha)

We're already ready for basketball season sadly, haha

What is it about polo shirts on lil boys that is SO adorable!

It's a sickness really:

At first I was annoyed by instagram...I don't know for some reason I felt like the pics were always fuzzy/not great quality (though it never occurred to me that maybe the CAMERAS on peoples phones weren't very good) cause now that I'm using it....I kinda like it :)

Also LOVE the layered look on lil boys-too cute

If you ever need your shoulder moistened-Jake is really efficient just saying

In other news I might be getting my dress from MODCLOTH today!!! I hope it fits....or at least is really close to fitting so I can have motivation to slim down a bit between now and eric's wedding...

Friday of firsts

Yesterday we had some fun firsts around here.  Jacob and I went over to Sara's to meet her and her cute little girl evie who was just born about a month ago.  It's so crazy that all of us from college are married and having kids-it makes those college days feel like they were an eternity ago, but it's still fun to hang. We had a little photo shoot-and I thought it was hard to get eye contact/expressions out of one baby! haha but they were so cute next to each other and she made Jake look so big!

so sweet:

This one cracks me up.  It's like..."*gasp* they've found us, don't move and maybe they won't see us" or they're about to get beamed up haha:

Another big thing happened yesterday-our baby monitors arrived a day after buying them (gotta luv amazon prime!)  They're really cool cause once they get used to the ambient normal level of noise coming from his room they don't transmit white noise but wake up once he sqwaks and then you can hear the fan etc on in his room.  The thought of my lil guy not being a few feet from me def gave me a lump in my throat, but once we fed him and laid him in his crib he was instantly asleep and FINALLY that room became a nursery.  It was sad at first but walking into our room and realizing we could sit up with lights on and READ or TALK and not have to worry about disturbing him-well, let's just say we got over the sad part pretty quick :)  And he did great-slept just as good as he normally does.  Went down around 10, woke up around 4 (usually makes it to 5 but whatever), went back down and woke up at 8, went back down and he's STILL down- I have a feeling that getting ready for the day is going to be WAY easier now that my movement/shower noises etc won't wake him up.  That being said I can't begin to comprehend how hard it's gonna be for him to go off to school when he's older, college later or even a mission-sheesh. 

 But we are proud of and love our lil guy!

Hmph.

I'm ready for fall now.  No...really....enough is enough houston...

I see all these cute fun pics of parents out with their kids in fall weather on their blogs.  They're actually wearing long sleeves and jackets while the sun is out (aka it's CHILLY there), and I can't put cute fall clothes on jake for fear of him over heating.
Hmph.
I think I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  But I really am ready for fall and would like to experience it before CHRISTMAS!
hmph....
I mean, I want to go on a walk with him in the middle of the day (gasp) and not worry about him being too hot....
I want to be able to wear my cute coats and scarves (and magically find my cutest scarf which someone stole from the closet back when I worked at KidsRKids....yeah that's a whole different story).
hmph.
I finally put up fall decorations today which isn't that much cause we don't really have lots of counter/shelf space to put decorations on....
hmph.
I mean we are driving to Utah for thanksgiving but that will be way past the fall weather I'm talking about and will basically feel like winter weather to us texas wimps.
hmph
sigh...ok I'm off to try to shake off this frustrated mood....I should warn code to just stay away from me today-I know myself too well, and the poor guy won't stand a chance with me in this mood...
hmph

when did I become an adult?

Did it happen instantly or did it happen in shifts?  I mean...was it when I turned 18? when I went and lived on my own in a foreign country for 18 months? when I graduated college?  when I got married?  when I had my first kid?  I guess if I hadn't grown up before then that was definitely when I became an adult.  Some things that I enjoy now that I didn't used to that seem to prove the fact that I'm an adult - or at least more adultish than I was before:

-I enjoy going to bed early (even tho I'm a night owl)
-I enjoy watching the news (or in my case: getting tweets about it since we don't have cable)
-I am interested in politics now (this is huge-I HATED politics all while growing up-hated how mad people got-now I understand why people are upset, it's pretty heavy stuff) ROMNEY2012!!! *ahem*
-I eat cooked vegetables (I used to only like certain veggies and only fresh-hate cooked....now I can tolerate it more)
-I seem to have little to no respect for all trendy poppy new artists that kids are into nowadays...
-I refer to "kids" (guess that means I'm not one) and actually use phrases like "back in my day we served missions at 21" etc

That having been said, I'm not so adultish to where I enjoy shows like: American Pickers, Antiques Roadshow, and storage wars-or whatever the heck that one is called.  (no offense dad and mom haha)

Back to that politics thing....I guess you must be doing pretty well if the only thing that your opponent has on you is that you want to cut money to big bird.  Really?  If I had to choose between the future financial ruin of America and some frills like Big Bird-sorry big guy.  It's just like a budget-if you're in the hole then you cut way back on all the unnecessaries until you get your feet back on the ground-it's called being responsible people.  Don't worry there are like 3 DECADES worth of reruns that can teach your kids about the ABCs and 123s.....which...really, if you're relying on public television to teach your kids maybe you should look at your parenting-maybe it's worth it (and free) for you to sit down with your kid and teach them/ quiz them about letters, numbers, colors, etc But something tells me PBS is doing just fine without the gov help-after all they're always saying "because of viewers like you" right?
anywho....can't wait for the 22nd.  If you're not registered to vote-no matter what side you're on- go out and register and vote! That's what America's all about, and this election is HUGE.

19 is the new 21

This past week has been full of fun and firsts.
We went to H mart- a nice Korean/Asian grocery store/food court.  It was pretty good and Code loved having some of his old favorites again:

We watched our first General Conference with Jake which wasn't too bad-tho I'm sure it'll get more challenging in the coming years but he was a good boy all weekend :) It was a really exciting General Conference-President Monson announced that young men in the church can serve missions as early as 18 and women as early as 19-this is particularly exciting since we used to have to wait til 21.  It will be interesting to see if the number of girls who serve missions will increase since they can go at a younger age-and prolly won't be as seriously dating as say 21 year olds.  Poor RMs...it's just getting harder and harder to date and marry freshman girls haha. (no offense to freshman girls who married RMs-we cool ;) Code asked if I was jealous that I had to wait til 21-my response? Heck no! I had so many fun experiences with awesome friends that I wouldn't have had if I had left at 19 plus who knows, maybe he and I wouldn't have met.  It's crazy to think tho, that jake will grow up thinking it's normal to go on a mission at 18 for boys and 19 for girls.  I'll be one of those old people who say: "back in my day we went..." as the kids roll their eyes.

All and all it was a great weekend.

and to brighten your day: