Hanging Out

Alstan likes to hang over my arm and chew on his hands. He kind of looks like a monkey. I'm sure when I carry him around like that people want to tell me he's not football, but he really does like hanging out like that.

This will be the last update for a few days. Alstan and his mom are going to a wedding in Canada and I'm teaching a college class weekend. They will be back early next week and then I'll continue the updates.

Circle of Neglect

We aren't able to neglect him yet, as he likes to have us around playing with him after ten minutes or so. He does like to chew on the stuff though. You can see he isn't quite tall enough for it yet. I'm sure that will be a reoccurring theme for him.

Sitting Forward

Alstan is getting more and more mobile. Here he's sitting forward in his swing. Good thing we had him strapped in.

Bedhead

Mom showing off Alstan's bedhead.

Alstan's Family Slide Show

It has been a while since Alstan has met anyone new and this weekend we had a bunch of new family members. Jessie and I didn't get pictures with all of them, but we added several new additions to the slide show.

At Great Grandma's

Here are some pictures from this weekend at Great Grandma Aker's house. I realized when I got home that I didn't get any photos with Grandpa Van even though they played a lot. We'll have to do that later this summer. Alstan is pretty tired today. He got to sleep kind of late and is sleeping in Jessie's arms right now.

I also put together the Circle of Neglect, Amie. He sits in it and right now he chews on the teething section. His feet barely touch the little base on the bottom (not quite as big as some of his second cousins).

Photos

Tracey sent me a CD with some of the pictures she took. Here are a few of them. Thanks Tracey!

Giggling with Mom

It's getting easier and easier to get him to giggle. It's just so fun to watch it too. I'll have more posts next week, but we'll be gone over the weekend so there won't be any updates until Monday.

Playing

We started putting him on a blanket to prop him up when he plays on his stomach. He rolls over a lot easier with that under him though. He doesn't like laying on his back as much anymore (that's for babies) and wants to sit up or lay on his stomach much more.

Scary Aunt Netty

Traumatized!

Jessie and Alstan

Here's a comparison photo of Jessie and Alstan at 3 months. Alstan is a little bit thicker (or a lot), but there are definitely similarities in their hair, eyes and eye brows.

Giggling and Standing

Harry Potter

Here is your request Amie, just trying to make your nerdy heart happy. It's not a new picture, but it'll have to do. Posting comments has it's advantages:)

There are nine Harry Potter additions to the picture. See if you can find them all!

Three Month Update

Tomorrow is Alstan's three month birthday. Jessie hasn't asked yet, but I'm sure she will ask what we are going to do for it. He is able to hold the weight of his head when I pull him up from a laying position now. He's also began giggling more in the last few days instead of just smiling.

Chicago Trip

Alstan and I got stuck going with the Art Club to Chicago. It actually went very well and Alstan did great! We had two beds so he had one to sleep in. He also slept a lot in his stroller or spent time looking at the big buildings. The only time he got upset was when the car wasn't moving fast enough in the rush hour traffic when we left.

Picture Descriptions:
1st picture: Playing with Dad in the Chicago Institute of Art. Alstan likes playing airplane now and we spent a lot of time playing in the museums when the students looked through it.
Picture #2: Alstan in the kids section of the Institute or Art. We were actually told at this place not to use flash photography even though it's designed to take pictures there.
Pictures #3 and #4: On Michigan Ave. with Mom and Dad waiting for the draw bridge to go down.
Picture #5: A family photo at the Chicago River in downtown Chicago.

Last Post of the Day!

I unintentionally did a posting marathon today. I guess that is because I'm supposed to be sitting at the computer putting in my grades. Anyway, here are some pictures of Alstan at his new bookshelf and with a book. In the last photo you can see that reading can be exhausting for Alstan.

On a side note, if you look at all the posts today you'll notice that he stayed in the same onesie all day! Didn't poop through or spit up at all. That's my new definition of a good day!

Kick

Here is a new video of Alstan kicking the keyboard drawer.

Also, I changed the video format and I think this one is better. There are two things I like about it. First, I can make it bigger to start with. The other thing I like is that you can make the video full screen. It's not great quality full screen, but at least it's an option. Try it out, see if you like it!

Smiles

I had just wrote about not being able to get pictures of Alstan smiling and then I got all these when he was playing with Mom.

Three Month Checklist

As you can see, Alstan is lifting his head quite well now. He does a lot of groaning and grunting when he does it though.

These are some of the other milestones that he's reached that are typical for 3 month olds:
- Visually tracks moving objects
- Squeals, gurgles, and coos
- Blows bubbles
- Does mini push-ups
- Rolls over from his tummy to back (only sort of - he's only done this twice).

One other useless tidbit I found. It is a height calculator (www.keepkidshealthy.com/welcome/yahtpredictor.html). If you put in 3 months and a length of 24 inches it will predict Alstan to be 5 ft. 8.3 inches. The other way to guesstimate height for a boy is to take the dad's height (5'7) and the mom's height +5 inches (5'10) and average the two together. That's 5'8.5"! I guess that's settled, 5'8.5 it is.

Lunch Break with Mommy

On a side note: In the corner of this picture you can see we FINALLY put a picture of Alstan up in our house. It only took 12 weeks.

Moving and Smiling

These pictures are from Tuesday morning. Alstan managed to kick and scoot his way around the side of his little play gym. It won't be long and I'm going to have to start child proofing the house.

The other picture is an attempt to get a picture of Alstan smiling. That has become a difficult job, as everytime I bring the camera up he stops smiling and looks at the camera.