Window Clings

Aunt Tara sent some Halloween window clings for Amelie with her gift for James :) I had an idea that she'd like them a lot, since Great-grandma Pat sent some last Easter and those were a big hit. These were, too: she played with them for 40 minutes the first day! (Since then, she's mostly enjoyed peeling them off and leaving them on the floor, though ...) Thanks, Aunt Tara!

She likes the "scary house" the best.

Play Gym

Bubble Bath

Cloth Diapers

I didn't make a blog post about it (until now, I guess :) but we did put James in his cloth diapers.

Peach Tree Farm

Amelie's preschool went on a field trip to Peach Tree Farm on Friday. Grandma Mary Beth valiantly agreed to come help wrangle kiddos. The defining characteristic of the trip for the grown-ups was that it was coooooooooooold. Very, very cold. What stood out most to Amelie was the chickens in the little house. I'm not sure what James thought, since once he located the pacifier during the group photo at the beginning, he slept the entire time. He may have been the only warm person out of the whole bunch.

Grandma Mary took this picture on the hayride. Amelie really enjoyed singing songs (in French!)

The aforementioned chickens in their little house:

Picking out a pumpkin:

Grandma had to help knock the mud off:

Now what am I supposed to do with this?

Grandma came prepared with a flashlight for the maze.

Amelie went through the maze several times. (I couldn't blame her -- it was warm in there!)

Feeding the goats:

Nana Jana Visits

Nana Jana came to stay and help out the week Sam went back to work and was a hugely enormous help.

These two are having entirely too much fun.

These are a little blurry, but still good.

Thanks, Mom!

Cousins

I'm 99% sure that this is the only picture in existence of the two newest Buffaloe cousins.

I feel that we need to rectify this situation ASAP!

Monkey Business

Our good friend Caitlin's mom sent James some super-cute monkey and bear clothes. Mama's committing a fashion faux pas by mixing them up (bear hat, monkey jumper), but James is able to pull it off, no?

Thanks so much, Karen!

In other news & notes, I think James is solidly in 3-month clothes now, if only because his cloth diapers add some generous padding.

Playground

We get a lot of use out of the park in our neighborhood. (We actually walked there this afternoon, too, but didn't take the camera.) These pictures are from about a month ago, when it was warmer!

Getting ready to go down the "mama" slide.

At the bottom:

Amelie calls this one the "baby slide":

I find this ladder to be slightly terrifying, but Amelie handles it pretty confidently.

Climbing is pretty fun:

And hard work!

Almost there . . .

On the last rung:

Visitors

Aunt Lana & Uncle Darrin stopped by to peek at the baby on their way to the MU game a little while ago.

I think he was mostly asleep while they were here, too, but everybody was all smiles.

Holding the baby

Papaw holds the baby.

Dada holds the baby.

Grandma Mary holds the baby.

James has on some pretty stylish monkey pants (thanks, Grandma M!), but he's more interested in cuddling than modeling to show them off.

Farm Expo

When the new baby boys were even smaller than they are now, the Buffaloe men took the toddler girls out to the MU Farm expo. Apparently there were lots of neat things to do, including pretending to drive this  tractor.

Don't the cousins favor each other? Papaw looks like he's seriously checking out the equipment.

Newborn Sleep

I have several blog posts to catch up on (and pictures to find that I should have somewhere -- on the computer or the camera or saved someplace), so the next few posts are most likely going to be slightly out of chronological order. (As in, these were all taken before James was a month old and the last post has pictures from his one-month birthday.)

Anywho, James sleeps a ton -- probably 19 hours a day, and sometimes more. The problem is that he likes to sleep like this:

For the uninitiated  that's on a boppy pillow, on my lap, right after nursing. He's nursing every couple of hours -- sometimes more and likes to sleep on someone's lap or chest (mostly mine). In fact, he's on my lap right now as I'm typing :)

I have a baby carrier, and need to get in the habit of using it more. I'm also hoping that he'll maybe sleep some in the swing now that he has a little more neck control.

I did wish for a cuddly baby, though, and that's what I got!

One Month!

James is one month old today! He celebrated by sleeping in various places and positions around the house. I celebrated by eating a slice of cake (thanks, Mary Beth!)

James is still wearing his newborn clothes, though the arms are getting a little short and he's filling them out quite a bit better than he was a first.

He's still sleeping like a newborn, though he has started having a few alert periods. He can track a face across his line of vision now. He's cooed twice in my presence  and was talking with Grandma Mary today :) When I asked Sam if he had any observations to add about James's first month, he said the baby likes to eat and poop. That sounds about right to me.

Here's a picture of him right after he was born -- my, how he's grown! (He still likes to sleep on Mama, and he still has a vaguely grumpy face, though.)