First Post!

Greetings, friends and family!

It’s been an exciting five and a half months since Jake arrived, and our adventures up ‘til this point have been chronicled over at Flickr (click here). We decided, however, that it was time to find a home for our stories, photos AND videos, and a friend recommended blogspot. I’ll try to update this as often as possible, and will be sure to share any fun stories or cute pictures.

Here’s a recent update from the baby front:

Jake's able to sit up on his own now for quite a few minutes, but still wobbly enough that he takes frequent nose dives. He's getting really good with his tummy time- using his back muscles instead of his arms to support himself. He’s really good with the rolling over from back to tummy (he only rolls to his left, though), but no luck on the rolling back over (which means he cries until someone rescues him). He has a rather small repertoire of sounds (I think he's going to be an introvert): "mmmmmm", "mamamamama" and "nanananana" (doesn't seem to connect me to "mama" though). We've heard "d" once, and he's recently discovered a sound that's a cross between a raspberry and "p". And he LOVES to kick- between the kicking, the (amazingly powerful) punching and biting, and the occasional nunchucking with his plastic toys, we think we've got a real martial artist here. :)

We recently spent a week down on Edisto Island, SC with my family, and had a wonderful time catching up and introducing him to all of his southern fans. Jake was baptized in the small non-denominational Christian church down there, with our immediate families as witnesses- a lovely, small, intimate and meaningful ceremony. He also got to experience his first oyster roasts, although we didn’t let him taste any! The big surprise of the week came when we invited my old friends Nathan and Mell Bell down to hang out over lunch one day. Nathan is a professional photographer, and they did the pics of our wedding (which were just stupendous!). They were excited to meet Jake, and they did what they call a “family session” with us- a ton of AMAZING pictures of us, Jake, my parents, the Island (and the dogs, Lacy and Gin). Here’s the slide show (and an “album” that Nathan designed for us is linked below): http://www.charlestonportrait.com/#/lee2/ Make sure your sound is turned on! They’re so talented!

Jake cut his first tooth last week (front lower right)! He’s pretty young yet, but I apparently toothed really early too. We didn’t even realize it was there… and then on the afternoon of April 1st, he started screaming in pain. It was an uncomfortable few hours, but by that evening, the tooth had broken through the skin completely! He’s apparently blessed to be one of those babies who tooth really quickly and easily… I hope it continues with the other teeth! We can already see his next one (right next to the existing one), so maybe that’ll be through soon too. Jake is REALLY enjoying biting things, and I recently made the executive decision that that means he’s ready for solids. I love being able to feed him myself, but this biting ain’t cool. Baby food, here we come!!

Further updates as news warrants.