Baby Boy

Alden is becoming more and more aware of his surroundings. He now loves to play with his toys and look around when we go out. He's also spending more time alone on a mat or in a bouncer seat. He is growing fast, and he's really heavy! He has an activity center that has toys and a bouncy bottom that he can jump on. He's started to show more interest in the toys, especially the turtle shaped mirror. I don't think he looks into the mirror, but he definitely loves to devour the turtle. :)

Joe and I decided that it was about time for Alden to start sleeping through the nights. I first started skipping the feeding session in the middle of the night. It went okay the first day, but the next day, he cried from 3 to 4:30 am before finally falling asleep.

The next day, about half an hour after being put away to sleep, Alden woke up again. Joe convinced me to let him cry a little bit to teach him to fall asleep by himself. After half an hour of pleading Joe to let me pick up Alden, I finally picked him up. We decided to turn to the professionals at that point. We looked up some articles on the internet, which said we should put him away when starts showing signs of tiredness with a bedtime routine.

That night, we read the scriptures together on the bed with low lights, and Alden started to fall asleep on his own on our bed. So I put him away, and he slepted really well for about 5 hours! The next day, after the bedtime routine, which consists of a bath, being rubbed down with Vaseline, feeding, and reading scripture reading, we put Alden away in his crib. He cried for about 10-15 minutes, and was fast asleep. He slept in until 7:30 the next morning. (Yay!)

Last night, after the bedtime routine, he fell asleep before we had the chance to put him away, I put him down in his crib, and he slept for 8 hours straight! Of course, I wasn't used to sleeping through the night, and I woke up several times to listen to the baby monitor, but I didn't have to get up to feed him or change him! We woke up around 6, and I'd never felt so awake in the morning!!! Joe and I even had breakfast together, it was wonderful! (I had energy to make toast and bacon for him. lol.) We're so happy Alden's being a good baby for us. :D

Joe and I have started a project to digitize all of grandma and grandpa's slides and pictures. Last time we went up to Bountiful, we took some Christmas pictures (which i'm working on to make into a DVD movie) and four slide trays full of slides from India. Last Saturday, we went to the BYU library. They have a family history center that has scanners that can scan slides. We took over three computers with scanners (see the picture below) to scan all the pictures. We had fun time looking at the pictures and watching movies while waiting.

Here's a picture of me with all three computers. :) Alden doesn't seem to be enjoying doing family history work....

And here's a sample of India picture. :) I think we scanned most of them upside down.... So I will have to work on putting them the right direction. lol.

Yesterday, Yearim called and said she really missed Alden. So she came over to see him and to play with us. She put Alden to sleep, and we had fun playing Mario Kart. The next two pictures look like they're the same pictures but you can see a slight difference.

Yes, Joe is smiling in the second one. He just made a really good turn, tripped Yearim over, caught up to her or something. lol.

Alden usually looks much like Joe, but I think as he's growing, he's becoming to look more and more like me. Sometimes, he looks very much like me (especially when he smiles or is sleeping - or whenever he is closing his eyes - because of the squinty eyes). In the next pictures, I really think he looks a lot like me. What do you think?