More Alba Family Pictures!

While Andrew & Trish were in town last week for our "fake" Thanksgiving (Trish had to work on actual Thanksgiving), we got some new family pictures taken.  It was cold, but we tried our best to keep the boys warm and thankfully, they were pretty patient.  I think they turned out pretty cute.  Take a peek.

We Have A Sitter On Our Hands

Little Oliver has become quite efficient at sitting on his own the past week or so.  It's easy to tell how big and important he feels now that he can see the world from a different vantage point.  Eli has started paying more attention to him too since he has started sitting up.  I'm guessing Oliver is seeming more like a play mate to Eli and less like a boring baby.   I love this squishy guy to pieces and dare say he's my favorite six and a half month old.

Oliver the Jumping Bean

One of Oliver's very favorite activities lately is jumping in his jumparoo.   He can seriously jump for upwards of an hour without growing tired of it.  I love watching his chubby little legs as he bounces.  



We also caught Oliver getting quite a kick out of his daddy on camera.  Playing peekaboo is another one of his favorite hobbies.  Man, I love this kid!

Goodbye, Old Pine Tree

While at church last week, my next-door neighbor came up to me, looked me straight in the eyes, put her hands on my shoulders, and in a very dramatic voice said, "What is happening with your tree?!"  Of course, I knew which tree to which she was referring because we only have one tree in our yard.  But I didn't know what she was talking about!  I gave her a dumb, blank stare and said, "What do you mean?"  She replied, "Oh honey, it's dead!"  She went on to tell me that she watched out her window the day the tree was planted in the spring of 1968 and she has watched it grow for the past 44 years into the 70 foot tree it is today.  She said she has never seen it look so bad.  I explained to her that we hadn't really noticed anything wrong with it, but that I would look into it.

When we got home from church, we got a good look at it for the first time and saw this.

Well, duh!  Now that you mention it, it sure looks dead, doesn't it?  How clueless could we be?!

Our excuses for not noticing its abysmal state are:
A) We've never owned a home before and thereby never owned a pine tree before.  We didn't know what they're supposed to look like.
B) We haven't lived in this house for a full year yet, so we've never seen this tree in the fall.  Isn't it supposed to be brown and shedding its needles all over the driveway?  Well, apparently not.  Our neighbors have the same type of pine tree in their yard and this is what theirs looks like right now:

Yeah, it looks a little different than ours.  It's nice and healthy.  Green.  Oops.

Adam and I have been faithfully sweeping the shedding pine leaves off of our driveway for the past few months, and we thought all the shedding was normal.  We didn't know it wasn't supposed to be shedding that much.

We were hoping that there was something we could do to save our giant tree that has provided shade to our house and our yard.  So I called a few arborists to come look at it and give me their opinion on whether we could do something to save it or whether it was too far gone.  We had 3 different companies come and unfortunately, they all gave us the same bad news.  Pine bark beetles got in probably about a year ago and have been eating away at it slowly ever since.  These nasty beetles are actually becoming quite a big problem around the country and are ruining forests everywhere.

These tree expert companies gave us estimates of how much it is going to cost to take it down, and they average about $1,000!  Ugh!  Who knew that cutting a tree down could be that expensive?  It's a bummer that out of the dozens of families that have lived in this house since the tree was planted 44 years ago, we're the ones that are stuck with the bill.  I thought it was worth a call to our home owner's insurance and home warranty company to see if they would pay for it, but they won't.  We're responsible for it on our own.  Bleh.  I'm trying to convince Adam that with the help of some neighbors we can totally take it down ourselves and save ourselves a grand.  But the lawyer in him is not thrilled with the idea of having it potentially fall on someone's house, car, yard, etc. and us being responsible.

I'm going to miss the shade from the tree, but most of all, I'm going to miss our cute swing that hangs on one of the branches.

We've had so many relaxing evenings swinging on it with our boys.  We're going to plant a new tree of course, but we'll never live here long enough for it to be big and strong enough to hold the swing.

Goodbye, tree.  We'll miss you!

Oliver: 6 Months Old

Dear Oliver,

You have been a part of our family for half a year now. I can't believe it! You have added such a sweet spirit to our home and we are so glad you're here. But I'm not going to lie; this month was a really hard one for me. For the first 5 months of your life, I felt like I was handling having 2 kids really well. The transition was smooth and I adjusted quickly. It was actually very surprising to me how easy it all was. But I feel like a lot of factors combined this month to make me feel like I was getting close to my breaking point.

For one, you are still a terrible, rotten, no-good sleeper.  Getting you to take naps every day is a struggle.  I have to nurse you to sleep for every one and then every so carefully transfer you to your crib, praying you don't wake up when I set you down.  You'll usually sleep for 20-30 minutes and then wake up crabby and crying.  I can't get you to go back to sleep for the life of me and then I just have to deal with an exhausted baby until a few hours later when we try the cycle all over again.  By the time your dad gets home from work, I am exhausted from the whole process and I shove you into his arms as soon as I can, begging him to try to put you down.  We've tried letting you "cry-it-out," but man, you are stubborn!  We have let you cry hysterically for over an hour before, but we always give in before you do.  I guess we're push overs and all of these sleeping problems are our fault.  But honestly, I can't handle you crying for longer than that.

Another factor that has made my life really hard this month is that your big brother learned how to climb out of his crib, and since moving him to a "big boy bed," he has pretty much stopped napping too.  So between the two of you, not much sleep is happening around here and I don't get much of a break during the day.  I want to go crazy by the end of the day!

You are still averaging about two feeding every night, but on a bad night will get up for three.  It's rare for you to only get up once.  The good news about this however is that you go back to sleep as soon as I feed you.

We gave you your first solid foods yesterday.  We mixed a little breast milk with oatmeal cereal (yum!) and fed it to you with a little spoon.  You did pretty well, but seemed pretty confused about the whole thing.  For most parents, the first feeding is a lot of fun, but for your dad and I, we were dreading it.  We have a lot of anxiety about food because of what we've gone through with Eli, and we are hoping with every fiber of our beings that you won't have food issues too.  Lately, we have done a lot of reading about how, when, what, and how much to feed a baby.  Just in case your brother's feeding issues were our fault somehow, we've done a lot of research on specific techniques on how to feed a baby too.  We want to help you be successful and have a good relationship with food.

You have (finally!) master rolling over in both directions. You were getting really close at the beginning of the month to going from back to tummy, but then decided that you didn't care anymore and stopped trying.  You went like 3 1/2 weeks without rolling over at all.  You were just content with lying around.

Despite the struggles we have with your sleep, you are still a happy baby.  You're very smiley and love to play with your big brother.  You two are really cute together and watching you play together makes me happy I had you so close together, even though you drive me nuts sometimes!  Sorry to complain so much, but I'm just trying to keep it real.  Here's to hoping next month is better than this one was!

Love,
Mama

Stats according to your doctor this week: 
Weight: 18 lbs, 12 oz (75th percentile) 
Height: 27 inches (75th percentile) 
Head: 17 1/4 inches (62nd percentile)