Our precious Valentine

giving a "tisssss" to Dad

Bookshelves are only for holding books until the books can be thrown onto the floor....

John Harrison has progressed pretty quickly with walking since he stook his first step on January 5th. He is walking all over the place and has been doing so for about a week and a half. He can walk across a room and take 20-30 steps in a row. He still crawls some seems to prefer walking to crawling. John Harrison loves waving his arms up and down when he is excited :). He also will sometimes give kisses (he occassionally says "tissss" before he gives a kiss). He is very much a boy and enjoys knocking down block towers that David and I build. John Harrison is within two weeks of being weaned!! We introduced cow's milk about two weeks ago and he has been doing really well with it.....so I am also eating dairy products again. I think his food and protein sensitivities are finally starting to settle down--finally!!

After doing some research, we decided to give John Harrison hormone free non-homogonized whole milk from a dairy about 1 1/2 hours away that raises grassfed cows.....the only catch is that the milk is only sold at one chain of produce stores in town and the closest store is 30 minutes away. We are able to get fresh produce in the same trip, though.

John Harrison nurses when he wakes up in the morning and right before he goes to bed and usually takes two bottles during the day (he sleeps from around 8:30 pm till 5-6 am). The fact that he is only nursing twice a day is a HUGE blessing and success considering that only a few weeks ago, if John Harrison was with me during the day, he would nurse at least 6-8 times in a 24 hours period. He has started to feed himself pieces of fruit and vegetables, but we still puree his meat. I am so, so excited about the progress. I feel like my baby has become a toddler over the past month.

My moma took these pictures last Saturday---she and Dad watched John Harrison while David and I went out to dinner for Valentine's Day. This was the first time David and I have done anything fun together in months and months and months!!! I decided to risk it and ate a steak, salad, and veggies without knowing the ingredients. John Harrison has seemed to have done fine with what I ate.

David and I have both been working quite a bit this month but nothing like the hours we put in last month. The next few months will be busy, but hopefully, life will continue on the trend of settling down so we can become more involved serving with our local church, spending time together, and spending time with our precious son.