Easter Bunny!

Simon met his first holiday icon...the Easter Bunny! He looked a little wary at first, but then settled in just fine.

Happy Easter! And Passover!

7 months old

I'll spare you all the "I can't believe how fast it's all gone" bit and get right to it...here's his 7 month picture! We had him in some adorable madras overalls, which he promptly spit up on while we had Max, Amber and Richard over. But we thought his Superman in Training onesie was plenty cute for the photoshoot, so check him out below. Special thanks to Grandma and Papa for the rocking chair!

Month 7 of life with Simon has been a little challenging...his sleep is a mess, and he throws us a new curveball every night. Right now he is showing off how well he can flip over onto his stomach in his crib, but seems to have forgotten how to get back over, a skill he had down at about 4 months old. His sitting up is fantastic and he has gotten really good with his hands. His favorite toys are his Leapfrog spinning toy and a new set of blocks that we got last weekend.

That's it for the month 7 update, outtakes from the photoshoot to come in a day or two.

Male Model

We dressed Simon in a super cute outfit that Aunt Karyn gave him for Christmas, and he was so cute that we took a bunch of pictures...is this kid going to be a model or what? Look at that posing! he's a natural!

Sitting up

Look at what a big boy Simon is! here he is sitting up all by himself, playing with one of his favorite toys. It feels like he mastered sitting up overnight, it's amazing how quickly he is developing.

Jamming

Check out Simon jamming on the air guitar on his changing table.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Well, there are big changes afoot in our lives these days. Unfortunately, Matt's company is in a pretty slow period, and they could only hope to keep Matt working for about 50% of the time for the next 2-3 months. We ran a bunch of numbers, and realized that since we would still have to pay the nanny full-time, the situation just wouldn't work for us.

So we decided to ask his company to lay him off full time until they can bring him back at full capacity. We gave our nanny share our 4 weeks notice and as of April 2nd, Matt will be a stay-at-home dad for a few months. Our secret hope is that he can stay home until Simon turns one, at which point we would put him into daycare. But the company thinks it will be sooner, so if that happens we will need to scramble to find care for Simon. It's a scary proposition, but paying the nanny just wouldn't be viable for us while Matt's out of work.

So we are simultaneously excited, scared, jealous (Lauren) and nervous (Matt). It's wonderful that Simon will have this time with Matt, and it'll be so good for him to get onto a regular schedule--something that's been hard to establish in the nanny share. And I'm excited for home-cooked meals every night (are you listening Matt??? :)

Matt has already been home on and off for a couple of weeks, and he sends me cute pictures of Simon during the days. Here are a few of my favorites...

yummy lunch of oatmeal, applesauce and cinnamon

And a lunch consisting of an unidentifiable orange vegetable

At the park on a sunny day

Yucky medicine face!

Happy post-nap baby!

6 month outtakes

Here are a few of our favorite outtakes from the 6 month photo shoot. There are also several more on our Shutterfly site, you can find those here:

http://teamwinstanley.shutterfly.com/323