first play date!

Wednesday Jamie had his first play date with his friend Madeleine.  Renee, her mom, was in my antenatal class and all of us from the class meet up once a week for lunch with our babies. We meet at the local mall and depending on the weather we either go to a restaurant inside or grab some sandwiches and eat outside at the park. The babies are awake at different times and usually feed at different points. They don't have much of a chance to interact besides on our laps.  This week I went back to Renee's afterwards for a cup of tea and we put the babies on the floor together. They were so cute together. They even held hands at one point--not intentionally of course, but it was still cute. Here are some snaps and a video of them together:

They both loved this little noisy bee:

Jamie turns 2 months!

Well the second month has certainly gone a lot faster than the first one. Jamie is just a joy to have around (most of the time). He started smiling this month which will just make anyone's day. He's becoming more alert and playful. He loves his bouncy chair. He's starting to bring his hand to his mouth and sucking his fingers/thumb. He stops crying (sometimes) when he hears my voice. And he's starting cooing. Here are some of the best photos from our shoot. Unfortunately, he wasn't particularly smiley on Tuesday, but he's still a cutie:

cute feet shots:

only one good outtake this month...a sneeze:

uncle hammy meets jamie!

I have lots of posts to catch up on. It's been busy around here. First, and most exciting, is Kyle came to visit last week. A very quick 5 day visit. The first few days he got to experience a normal day in the life of Stacy and Jamie. We had some slow mornings and went out to run errands and to the doctor's in the afternoon. We went to have Jamie weighed on his 8 week birthday and he's now 11 lb 5 oz! What a porker;)! Acutally he's follow his projected weight perfectly, which I didn't doubt given how much he eats!

On Saturday we drove further out in the country and took Kyle for a pub lunch and followed it by a walk. And by walk, I mean a good English ramble in the countryside-through fields and up and down hills. I forgot to mention this to Ky as he assumed we meant a stroll through the park. We even came across a village fair and stopped for ice cream. That night our church was having a quiz night and hog roast. Much more high tech than any of us imagined. Lots of video clips and we had electronic buzzers to key in our answers. Scores were based on both correctness and also speed. Sadly we did not even come close to winning. Kyle held his own though, answering questions about Sponge Bob and Harry Potter that none of us knew.

Sunday we went to church and then had a BBQ with Dan (who was in our wedding) and his wife Skevi. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and we had to slather Jamie up in baby sunblock and keep him under an umbrella. Wish I had taken a photo...sorry. He left Monday morning sadly. Jamie loved meeting his uncle and you can tell how much fun they had because on Monday Jamie slept almost the entire day and followed it by pretty much sleeping through the night again! Here are some photos from his trip. More can be found on our Flickr site which is linked to on the right.

hello!

teaching him how to defend himself

comparing hand size (Jamie's got a way to go)

Hamacher shot

Bub-bye for now!

on video...finally!

I finally managed to get Jamie to smile on video today. It's just from my iPhone this time, but it does the job. He's getting more smiley each day. I love it!

(US) Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's day in the States. In the UK, Mother's day is the second Sunday in March, back when we were still awaiting Jamie's arrival. Paul actually bought be a lovely mother's day card then and saved it for when Jamie arrived, so I consider that my true mother's day. However, I thought I'd mark the US holiday with a mommy/Jamie photo shoot. Jamie had other days. He was very sleepy yesterday, so between church and having our friends, Ben and Lizzy, over for the late afternoon/dinner we didn't get a chance to get any snaps until after dinner. Jamie performed his most recent routine of extreme fussiness for 1.5-2 hours before bed. So this is what we were left with:

Doesn't he look miserable?!

Shushing works sometimes...

This was the best we got!

By th way you can access full versions of our best photos through our Flickr page (accessible through the link on the ight.  You can also sign up for email alerts from our blog on the right.

more family comes to visit

The bank holiday was a busy one for us. Auntie Kim came for the weekend--that's right she came all the way from St. Louis for a two day visit with her nephew. We loved having her here too. She was a pro by the end of the weekend.  Jamie even said thank you, by performing one of best tricks...weeing on her through his diaper. Here are some photos:

Lots of cuddles...

...and some also fun time:

We also had a brief visit with Cecily who was in town for the weekend.

Jamie didn't know quite what to think at first, but it turns out she's a natural.

The last visit of the weekend was from Nana and Grandad. They came for the day to see sweet Jamie, and also to help us plant up some yummy veg in our garden. They did a brilliant job planting everything up and mostly avoiding the showers. All while Paul mowed the lawn for the first time and while I fed Jamie. Can't wait for the summer to try out all the fun produce.

Grandad and James having a little bonding time.

Getting a cuddle from Nana.

After all these visitors, I think he was exhausted:

Jamie smiles!

On Jamie's 5 week birthday (last Thursday), he started smiling. It is the cutest thing ever. He mostly smiles at faces, particularly those he recognises. He's been showing it off to a few others too. He cracked a couple for my work colleagues and also for my sister who came to visit over the weekend. We are still working on getting him to show it off for the grandparents. He hasn't given Nana or Big Daddy one via webcam and he also held out when Nana and Grandad when they came to visit on Monday. Here are a few shots of it we got over the weekend with Kim.