Noah's 5 Month Update

Noah Boy,

The longer you are alive, the more nick names you are acquiring: Noah Boy, Noah Boa, Mister, Buddy, Noah Bear. We’ve had a relatively calm month. You finished your 4th developmental leap and I think finished the 4 month sleep regression.

We are now in a really good routine. Sophia has adjusted to having you around and her new school and hasn't been acting out as much. Your vocal range is getting wider and you’re now making higher pitched noises. You’re not fully rolling over by yourself yet, but getting closer. You’re more motivated to roll onto your side when reaching for a toy. You especially like this toy cube that plays music and lights up as well as a crinkly textured book.

I may have said this last month, but I love how intentional you’ve become about touching things. I will hold a toy out in front of you and you’ll slowly move your hands and grab it. You' love bringing your toys to your mouth and touching the pages of books. When you cry, Sophia loves to sing you songs to help you calm down; you love listening to her voice. Giggles come out of you when we turn our head away and whip it around towards you. We love hearing your giggles.

This month kicked off all of the holiday festivities, and I’m so excited for you to experience them for the first time. We celebrated Friendsgiving with Tio Max, where you tried your very first food: applesauce. You looked very confused when tasting it. I’m excited to introduce you to so many different, yummy foods.

On 11/28, you started (almost) consistently sleeping through the night (until we all got sick). I’m so proud of you, Noah! I've been giving you your dream feed a little bit earlier to help you stretch your nighttime sleep, and that has been beneficial for both of us. Next month, I’m hoping to start officially sleep training, but thankfully we are still encouraging you to fall asleep independently, so hopefully the sleep training won’t be too bad. Only for those random days you have a hard time settling down.

When you are having a hard time settling, we eventually give you the binky, and you LOVE it. I kind of have some guilt over giving it to you because I don’t want you dependent on it to fall asleep, but it almost always soothes you. It's especially hard when it's in the middle of the night and I just want to go back to sleep. I think we will phase that out during sleep training as well.

We've been waiting until you are consistently sleeping through the night to move you into Sophia's room, so hopefully you’re back to your good sleep habits after we are all feeling healthy. I'm so ready to have my room and my space back.

On your three month update, I alluded to you not being a great car seat napper. That has completely changed and now you generally sleep just fine; rarely waking up at every stop sign or slow down.

On Thanksgiving, we made sure to go outside and enjoy the sunny day. Sophia got to fly her Cocomelon kite and we played at the park. Later, we had some friends from our small group over. It was a lovely time of fellowship, but I did feel like I

spent most of my time cooking and cleaning instead of with my family. Note to myself for next year. A few days later, we had our neighbors over for a Thanksgiving leftover meal, where we each brought the leftovers we had. I really loved that idea and hope to do it again next year.

The day after Thanksgiving we decorated our Christmas tree. You watched as Sophia helped us hang ornaments. I've since had to move the ornaments to the top half of the tree and put the presents away, as both things are too tempting dor Sophia.

Since we went to Utah half way through December, we tried to do all our family Christmas activities before we left. The Camas Christmas festival was first on our list. Sophia is at a really fun age, where she can participate in the Christmas things and really enjoys them. You mostly just like looking at the lights. It's so fun seeing holidays through the eyes of children.

Christmas celebrations looked different this year and wasn't what I had envisioned. We all got the flu/colds and had to cancel Christmas parties and Sophia's 2 Christmas programs. We were so so bummed, but it has been nice to slow down and have this extra time together without all the hustle and bustle.

We’ve never seen Sophia sicker than she was this week. She was either sleeping in her bed or resting on the cough. You didn’t get hit as hard, but still had a runny nose and a cough. At night time, every time you’d cough, you’d pop your pinky out and then you’d start crying. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this sick. It was a rough week for all of us and our coughs lingered for a long time after.

We planned to celebrate our family Christmas on the 19th since we will be in Utah for Christmas, but none of us were feeling fully up to it. You and Sophia opened your stockings and a few gifts, but we saved the rest for another day.

December 17th, we packed up all of us, including Jericho, and flew standby to Utah to celebrate Christmas, New Year’s, and Sophia’s birthday with our family. We weren’t able to get on the first flight as they had reached their maximum number of pets allowed, so we had to hang out at the airport for a few extra hours and catch the next flight. You, Sophia, and Jericho did so well travelling. The only "issue" was you popped in the airplane and we didn't notice till we were off the plane and it had got all over your backside.

The 18th, we woke up early and drove to Grantsville where Colton spoke to the youth group at our friend’s church. After lunch we drove down to Ephraim where we stayed until the 23rd.

We had a busy week in Ephraim seeing different friends and doing different activities. When we arrived, we went to part of a church Christmas party and ate dinner. The 19th we played around the house and then went to a Claira’s dance recital; Sophia tried to dance along, it was very cute. The 20th Sophia got her very first haircut and we went to Claira’s house for dinner.

The 21st we had a play date with a friend, had Miss Debbie over for lunch, and then spent the evening Bowling. You were so happy to watch us bowl, even though none of us were very good at it.

The 22nd we celebrated Christmas with Grammy and Grandpa Kittelsrud. On the 23rd we played in the snow for a bit and drove back to Grandma and Grandpa Groves’ house for the remainder of our trip.

The holiday season has been so much fun with you and Sophia. She is at the perfect age, where everything feels magical. You mostly just like looking at the lights and having all the attention from your grandparents. We can’t wait to celebrate Jesus’ birth with you for the first time and enjoy all this time with our family.

Love,

Mom and Dad.