highlights reel ... by that I mean his first teeth and his baby blessing trip to Utah ... first time on a plane!

That cute baby is four months old. He is the best and so freakin adorable and we love him with all our hearts. His smiles slay me - his grins and giggles are absolutely fantastic.

Example:

And a video example:

This does not mean that the transition to motherhood is a snap, because it is really not - because holy crap babies need stuff. But the fact that my heart melts when I look at his face makes it a lot easier. And knowing that he is doing a very good job at being a baby. When he cries, sometimes I try to thank him for telling me what he needs, because it would be a lot worse if he didn't tell me so I didn't know. If it's a hard day, sometimes it helps to think that we have a (fairly) working communication system, and not like I just have a crying baby.

I used to think stay-at-home-moms had good chunks of free time during things like naps, and I guess sometimes that's true (though, those times mean showers on some days and reversing the tornado effects on other days and once in awhile me-time!), but geez louise. It's not very predictable sometimes and we had one major incident lately that has made naptime even more unpredictable ...

That, folks, is a tooth. And actually, we just found a second one down there, too. They're little and sharp and are hurting him, which makes me sad and also turns my brains to mush because he has never been a fussy baby before now. (And even now, he's a good kid, I couldn't ask for more. He just sometimes hurts, which makes it hard for him to sleep, so then he's in pain and he's really tired, too.) Jon is a miracle dad and does a ton of the baby whispering, but his weekday time at home is obviously limited, so I'm trying to put on my supersuit and just muscle through it.

And despite all that hurt going on in that tiny body, our little Alex still manages to be the most social kid on the block. He looooooves people and all it takes is eye contact to bring out his giant grin (and if you're lucky, sometimes even a giggle.) Social time with groups of people can make him forget all his troubles. Everybody says what a smiley baby he is.

Here are some fun things we've done with him in his short little life. First, we hopped on a plane when he was one month old and took him to Utah for his baby blessing! Jon's parents are serving a family history mission there, and my parents were passing through on their way to take my sister Rachel to college, so it all worked out. We had planned to have the blessing in Jon's parents' ward, but then we found out that they were having a regional conference on that day, so we switched gears and blessed him at our own ceremony in the Relief Society room in their stake center. We probably wouldn't go out of our way to do that normally, but it was a nice meeting and we loved having time to chat with friends and family afterward without missing other meetings. Jon gave a beautiful blessing.

His first plane ride: 

The best shot we got of him in his little white collared shirt (with the white bow tie, courtesy of my sister Alison) is this cute one of Alex with my lifer-friend Christy and my photobombing uncle Eric!

Here's all our immediate family who were able to make it to the blessing (thanks to my cousin Amberlee for the picture.) We're missing my sister Kelli, who's on a mission, and Jon's siblings, who are spread around the country. We had a surprising number of friends who were able to make it, too, and felt really grateful that they took the time out of their Sunday afternoon to come.

We spent the rest of the trip mostly hanging out with family and a few friends. (My parents gave us a break and got up with Alex during the two nights we were in the same house - that was AMAZING, as I have found out that I don't function on no sleep like I used to.) Alex had no shortage of people wanting to snuggle him. It was a solidly booked trip and his two sets of grandparents got first dibs on Alex's social calendar. Then we flew back to California!

When our flight touched down in Oakland again, we decided to hit up some Oakland/Berkeley favorites before heading back to our apartment. Sooooo... we made sure he had his first taste (if nursing counts, I guess) of Cheeseboard Pizza:

And his first visit to Berkeley Bowl. I tried to post the very most hippie-looking pictures I could find.

(Don't worry, he's breathing out that open side of the wrap.)

Aaaand, I had grand aspirations of posting about more than one thing, but! Not today! :)