Edit Monkeys

We are training Jonah at a young age to edit! He is a great asset for our business! :-) Teehee...not really. But the boys have been rocking out on the keyboard-we thought it would be funny to record their jam sessions.

Speaking of jam sessions this week at his music class the babies were introduced to drums. They were these great huge low lying drums that were the perfect height for babies. The instructor and parents were drumming and then the instructor asked us to stop to see what the babies would do, and Jonah starts rockin' out-he was having a drum solo and then his bud Jackson joined in-It was hilarious. Auntie Laura, I think we need to add to his collection. He loves the drum you got him, but perhaps we need to go bigger. :-)

This morning we introduced Jonah to a puree of rice cereal and bananas with a hint of cinnamon. I always taste his food before I give it to him and it was delicious. And Jonah would agree. It was a huge hit. He ate the most he has ever eaten since introducing him to solids.

This evening we are headed out to celebrate Sasha's 1st Birthday! I will definitely post the pictures over the weekend. Happy Birthday Sasha~

Jonah Graduates

Yesterday, Jonah graduated from the Providence hospital group. He tolerated the hat, mainly so I could have this picture for our album. All the babies graduate at 6 months (we were a bit late)which is really at the perfect time.

I highly recommend attending the free hospital groups after you have a baby. They provide you with a great social network of new mamas and babies. I have to thank my sister in law for passing on these words of wisdom to me. It was exactly the support I needed as a new mom.

Jonah turns 6 months old!

My sister says I need to blog more regularly and she is right! Laura, I hope these new pictures make you happy until I can get another batch posted!

Jonah turned 6 months old on January 20th and we had a little celebration for him with his Grandma Debbie and Grandma Ellen. We gave him his first "solid" food which was pureed avocado! And Grandma Debbie made a great suggestion to put a candle in it before we gave it to him in celebration of his .5 year of life! We, of course, blew out the candle for him.

His reactions were quite hilarious! By his reactions, it appeared we were feeding him something rancid, when that truly was not the case. But, he humored us all and allowed us to give him a few more bites. Since then we have given him avocado and by day 3 he actually opened his mouth for it! That made us so happy! Yesterday, was the first day that we introduced homemade rice cereal with breast milk. We gave him more today and he gagged on some and ate a bit more, but not a whole lot. I can tell it is already going to be fun to see his development with eating.

I am reading the the Super Baby Food Book by Ruth Yaron about making your own baby food and it is surprisingly easy and much much cheaper to make your own food. Thanks to Keely for sharing this book with me. :-)

Things have definitely slowed down since December. I feel like we are getting a chance to see all our friends again too. We started the Music Together series and Jonah is thoroughly enjoying the class-he coos, and smiles, especially when we are dancing.

Jonah, Grandma Ellen and I also flew to Medford to spend the weekend with Aunt Laura and Uncle Cory. Jonah ended up catching another cold, perhaps from flying (who knows?), but as always I am amazed at his good spirit in the midst of congestion. We ended up sleeping together because it was just much easier to help him, change him and feed him with him in bed with me. Between the help of family we managed pretty darn well and with the help of Starbucks! It is always a joy to see Jonah with family-and family with him-they all light up around each other.

It feels like Jonah is getting closer and closer to crawling. You will see pictures with his attempts. I hate to refer to my son as a "beached whale" but it looks a bit like that as he is trying to move forward and grunting at the same time. You can just tell he wants to move somewhere so bad. He continues to amaze us with his fun personality, smiling, being bashful, laughing, cooing, make loud funny sounds, and blowing tons of raspberries and a lot of spit in our faces.

For those who do not get to see us on a regular basis and even for those that do, it is so nice to have this outlet to bring Jonah and our family closer to you.

Love to you all-
The Allen Clan

Happy New Year!

Christmas had a whole new special meaning having Jonah apart of it this year (outside of the womb that is)! And having snow on the ground made it really feel like Christmas too!

On Christmas morning we were so excited to hear Jonah waking up-we jumped up and ran to his room. Honestly, he probably could have kept sleeping but we were way too excited to get the party started. So, we got him out of bed to open his first presents, which included a set of bear pajamas, a new teething toy and a special book from us!

As family arrived, he opened other wonderful things, like books, clothes, a moose rocker (a shout out to AK), a penguin and a plethora of musical instruments from his aunt laura and uncle cory. He is a rock star in training! We assisted him in the opening of the gifts, and it was so cute to see him have interest in the gifts and the wrapping paper. I nearly forgot to mention the best news: Jonah got his first two teeth for Christmas!

And with the wonderful amount of snow that accumulated we packed Jonah up in our hiking backpack-and we went skiing from our doorstep. I could have gotten use to this! It made me a bit homesick-then I thought about frost bite and 50 below and these things quickly reminded why I moved to Oregon in the first place.

We also had the opportunity to celebrate little Ella's 1st Birthday in Corvallis, Oregon (pics in the newest album). She has grown up way too fast!

The holiday was filled with an overall warm and fuzzy feeling, hmm...or was that the hot toddies? No, really, it sounds corny, but it is true.

Wishing you all a prosperous and fulfilling new year!

Love Joelle, James and Jonah