the fifth month

I can't believe Nolan turned 5 months old on 5 September! The time is just flying by! Before I know it, he will be running all over the place! It has been so much fun watching Nolan grow and learn. We love him so much and we can't imagine our family with out him! He is such a fun smiley little guy - at least most of the time!

A few things about Nolan this month:

- His favorite things to play with are paper, remotes (especially the x-box controller), and anything electronic (lap tops, cell phones, iPods, etc)

Trying to share dad's otter pop

- Smiles and laughs at people he knows - he laughs all the time when we tickle him and make funny noises! Its so adorable! :)
- He loves to play peek-a-boo

"I found you!!"

- When we're holding him, he loves to stand up and "jump" (we have to help with this one..)
- He wants to sit up so badly! He is working on it, but still can't do it for very long before he bends in half or falls over.

- He started rolling from his back to his tummy. He has pretty much stopped rolling from his tummy to his back. He'll just start yelling at me when he gets tired of his tummy. So I'll eventually help him roll over. Usually I'll come back over to check on him in 5 minutes or so and he is back on his tummy playing happily with his toys. :) I think he has realized its easier to play with things when he is on his tummy and can see them better!

Here he rolled off of the blanket I had him on!

- He loves to look at himself in the mirror. Sometimes I give him a mirror to entertain him during tummy time.

- He has become kind of clingy lately. He cries if someone he doesn't know holds him for longer than a couple minutes. He really prefers mom or dad to hold him when he is somewhere new/unknown.
- He loves to blow raspberries
- Nolan got ringworm this month - this combined with his eczema made for an itchy situation! Poor little guy! :(
- AND he will finally smile for the camera! Yay!

Our little Cougar!

An update on the sleeping situation: 

Nolan is not what you would call a good sleeper. He doesn't like to take his naps. A lot of the time I have to lay with him or hold him while naps. Which is hard on me since I can't use that time to be productive! He usually goes down pretty well at night (as long as I nurse him or rock him till he is mostly asleep), but he still wakes up every 2-3 (or maybe 4, if I'm lucky) hours. We can sometimes get him back to sleep without eating, but a lot of the time he just wants to nurse before he'll go back to sleep.

We moved him out of our room this month to see if it would help him sleep better if he weren't so close to me. It has helped me sleep better, but not Nolan. His sleep patterns have pretty much stayed the same. I know we need to teach him to fall asleep on his own, especially at night, but we live in a townhome complex and our walls are pretty thin. His nursery wall is shared with the neighbors baby and I can hear her crying sometimes. So I hate leaving Nolan to cry it out at 8pm when I know the neighbors are probably trying to get their baby to sleep as well.

I've just started taking some vitamin and mineral supplements to see if it will help. I know (from my energy levels) that my body has been depleted and I've had a hard time rebuilding since I'm still nursing. Hopefully this will help! If nothing else, it should help me feel better! I'll have to write a post about what I've been taking in a few weeks if they seem to be helping.

 Some other fun things that have happened this month:

Nolan has been able to get to know my family a lot better this month. My mom went to Education Week at BYU. She came down and stayed at our house for the week while she attended. It was fun to have her here to play with Nolan in the mornings and at night. By the end of the week, he was loving having her here! He would give her the biggest smiles whenever he saw her.

He loves sucking on his toes!

We also decided to go spend Sunday/Monday at my family's house for Labor Day weekend. We were driving up to have dinner with Scott's family anyway so we decided to spend some time there as well. It was great for Nolan to spend more time with my Dad and get to know him as well. AND my parents were kind enough to take Nolan in the morning so BOTH Scott and I could sleep in. This was SO nice. The night before, Scott and been working until 3am because of the mud slides in Saratoga Springs and Nolan had decided to get up ever 30-60 min so I hadn't gotten any sleep either. We had fun playing lots of games with my parents and my brother Nathan.

...He also loves sucking on my face...

Nolan and I have also enjoyed having my sister Megan come over a few times since she has started school at BYU. Its so fun to have a sibling close by again! :)

I trapped him behind some sheets so I could get the laundry changed...

I think he enjoyed it...

"Oh hey mom!"