Splish-Splash!

Josiah turned 7 months old on the 10th! What a fun age! A friend with adult children told me that 8 months was her favorite--super fun and not able to talk back and/or run, I guess! I can't imagine loving any age more than the one we are currently experiencing. Josiah loves life and by extension, has made his parents appreciate every second we get to spend together!

Si is an expert "sitter" and becoming quite the accomplished "inch worm". Certainly not a crawler yet, but so cute as he works at getting to that toy that is just out of reach!

This little photo shoot happened on the day Si turned 7 months. I like to try to capture exactly what he looked like on each month birthday! Pretty cute, huh?

We are excited to announce that Josiah LOVES water! We were using that bucket bath; which was very cool and we liked it a lot, but I am not surprised, knowing our son, that he could hardly contain himself once we finally let him out of that confined space! FREEDOM! Si is a little fish, I can tell already! We stuck him in the big boy bath tub this week and I think he could have played for hours; maybe an option when I no longer have to hover over him on my knees.

We also attended our first "family swim" at the gym! Josiah couldn't wipe the smile off his face for hours! We didn't get a picture that even comes close to how cute he is or how much fun he had in the pool. The picture I will always have in my mind, however, is of this adorable little guy floating on his back with both arms "relaxing" behind his head, kicking and splashing his legs and smiling from ear to ear. So precious!

These two are the best! I have the best Valentines ever! This is why I get up each morning!!!

We shot this video when Si first got in the pool, he was not quite sure what was going on. Let me tell you it didn't take long for him to figure out that he was, in fact, in heaven!

sick days

Si and I have been sick all week. Stuffy nose, coughing, fever, chills, headache, sore throat...

Josiah is such a champ though, it's his mom who is complaining! Actually, the above symptoms are mine. Si seems to be escaping with the first two only! Thankfully! He has become accustomed to the bulb-suringe and even thinks it's kind of funny to get his snot suctioned out.

By the way, this is not a good time to ask about the gym. I thought I had a hard time in the last class I took because I am so out of shape, turns out I just had a fever! Anyway, in hopes of not spreading our germs we have not been back to the gym for a few days. We'll be back tomorrow, right?!

Here are a few pictures of our sick days together for the people who miss him most!

getting back into shape!

We really have come full circle this year. I remember writing a blog just about a year ago about our early 2009 kick-start into fitness. That whole deal lasted, in some form, through my pregancy, but after little Josiah came on the scene we have been painfully lazy. Ok, to give ourselves a break; preoccupied!

Well 2010 is our year for fitness....again. This time we are putting a little more monetary motivation into it. We have joined a gym complete with child care and classes and, most importantly, accountability. Seriously , if I don't mention the gym every once in a while in this blog, I want someone to comment...."hey, Anna, how's the gym?" or "worked out lately?"

We joined a few days ago and have been to two classes already. My goal is to gain about 10 pounds in muscle. It took my strapping on my tennies and sporting the workout clothes again to fully realize just how lanky I am. I was under the impression that my muscles would grow at the same rate as Josiah. Not so. What grew was my back ache, so here we are publishing the fact that we will be lazy no more! I won't tell what Caleb's goals are...but we decided that there would be some really exciting insentive at the end for meeting our goals!

Whether or not we were going to trust the child care center at the gym was a little touch-and-go or awhile, but we have gotten to a good place with them and they are very loving toward our little guy. I am very excited for the next time we have a Saturday afternoon together as a family because they have a family swim time so we can get Si in the pool...he will look so cute in his little swim trunks!

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks as Josiah has gotten more and more sturdy sitting up and has started to work on getting into the crawling position. I think we are a little ways off from actually crawling but he is certainly getting interested in getting from one place to another. We just started giving Si some finger foods along with the new baby foods we are trying. He just keeps getting cuter every day!

Caleb is great at putting Josiah (and himsself) to sleep.

He loves the backpack. This is perfect daddy/son time.

All my favorites within arms reach on a Saturday morning!

Josiah loves playing with his block-train set; but he loves the cardboard it came in a little better!

Josiah is full of smiles and giggles! We can't get enough!

This is exactly how I have always slept--on the tummy with one leg bent and one arm up. We are never quite sure where we will find Si each morning. He is full of surprises!

6-month-milestones

Can it really be possible?! We have a 6-month-old! Josiah is 6 months old today. He is a happy, loving little boy and we could not be more blessed with this little one! He is absolutely the joy of our lives!

Josiah is sitting up pretty well these days. Of course he needs a little help getting to the sitting position but once he is there, he is doing a great job balancing himself, especially when he has a toy to play with/stablize him.

His Little Personality: He giggles all the time. He loves to be tickled. He loves Shep so much! In fact, he gets way more excited when Shep enters the room than when either of his parents do. He loves to be held and is very much a snuggler. He is extremely interested in faces and is totally entertained by his father's antics. He loves to touch our faces and talk to us while we make goofy faces at him. He drools constantly but has no teeth yet. He also has a little temper that tends to flair up when he feels like there is no reason that he is not being held at any given time of day. He is very social and so far has been willing to make friends with just about anyone.

This is one of his favorite toys. He and I were sitting at it playing the other day and he decided to stand instead! Look at those strong legs. This was a very quick picture with my hand just out of camera view-promise!

Josiah is eating his veggies now! We started solids a few weeks ago, but we really started being consistent with him last week. He has been eating (and liking) green beans, banana, squash, avocado, sweet potato and rice. We are starting him pretty slowly since I had so many food allergies as a child but so far, so good! Caleb and I are making our own baby food. We think we have a good system now of making four or five different kinds of veggies, etc on a weekend and freezing it for the week. We are using the ice cube tray method and since we are not the most gifted domestic engineers, we are pretty proud of ourselves for this one. (Not willing to use cloth diapers, but can make baby food like nobody's business!)

Josiah loving his green beans!

Caleb and I get a break now and then when he decides to hold his own bottle.

We have Si's 6-month check-up next week. He has had one little cold, but over all has been so incredibly healthy. I am a little worried about the flat spot on his head...that no doubt can be attributed to the 12 hours of sleep he gets every night. So far, our doctor has not thought it was a big deal, or at least a big enough deal to put a helmet on him yet. Thankfully, he is starting to sleep more on his side and stomache on his own in recent weeks, so hopefully we won't have too much more trouble with the flat head thing...seriously could be a problem for a bald kid.

These first 6 months flew by and we are so excited for the next 6.

Happy New Year

We started our new year with an early morning walk on the 1st. It got kind of chilli so we ended our walk with Si snuggled up inside Daddy's sweatshirt. Thanks to Mooma (my mom) Si keeps warm in quite possibly the cutest hat ever!

Then we braved the zoo for a second time since becoming proud owners of a zoo pass, this time with the Weatherly's and a lot more sunshine!

Since returning from Washington after Christmas, we have had almost all 70 degree days! You have to love Arizona in January! I am even hearing that Florida is getting snow. One of the many perks of living here that outweigh, or at least even out the slumping economy and plummitting value of our home!

My favorite guys in the world!

It is so nice to have a stroller at the zoo, to carry you diaper bag, lunches, extra clothes and souveniers; which really frees up the arm space so you can carry your child!

Monkey village is the coolest part of the Phoenix Zoo! You get to walk into the exhibit and watch the monkeys play all around you. Josiah was moderately interested in these little guys.

Not so interested in these ones though. Many more animals were out this time around. It was a beautiful sunny day and we (not the babies) were entertained for hours.

If you're Josiah it is kind of hard to get all geared up for the zoo animals when you get to have close encounters with a big furry animal every day at home!

Don't judge! This is just so darn cute when it happens, you might let Shep kiss your child on the mouth too!

After the zoo, we settled in for an afternoon of football. (Sorry, Oregon) It was a great day for the Fields and a great start to 2010!

Josiah is six months old this week! Unbelievable, how quickly time flies! Josiah changes every single day....His 6 month photos will be up very soon!

Our first Christmas as a family of 3

We had a fabulous Christmas with our family in Washington. Josiah got to meet many of our WA family for the first time and we spent most of Christmas week just hanging out in Yakima with my parents. We finished some last minute shopping, played games, watched football and Caleb and I even got a date night.


Becky and Steve gave us a great camera that is way better than our old little camera. We should be able to vastly improve on our pictures from now on. Thank you, Fields! Becky is a professional photographer in WA and generously gave us a hand-me-down. We are so thankful!

At 5 1/2 months, Si is learning to sit up but still needs support. He is such a strong boy and is starting to be able to get around pretty well by sort of thrusting himself forward either on his stomach or back...really trying to get those buns in thier air so he can crawl. I know he is going to be so active and we'll likely have some frustrating days between when he really wants to be moble and when he can actually coordinate it all together.

The Mocks arrived on Chistmas Eve. I am so glad we got so much time with them. Casey has done an amazing job of "talking up" the Fields so the girls really feel like they know us even though they are growing up so far away. Caleb and I plan to talk up Josiah's cutie-pie cousins as well in hopes that our kiddos always feel bonded as a family; even 1500 miles away.

Caleb and Si got some bonding time here in the basement when they and their football game were banishd in favor of Curious George's Christmas Program. I think it is clear that Si is a lot more interested in haning out with daddy than watching the game.

2nd cousins! My mother and her sister Francie have a combined 8 grandkids to date. We finally got all the families together and one very brief opportunity to line the kids all up on the couch. Josiah is in good company here as the third baby born this summer alone! So fun to get our growing families together! From Left: Charlotte Hansell, Isabelle Mock, Josiah Fields, Liam Heideman, Claire Mock, Gage Heideman, Jake Heideman, and Hunter Hansell.

My parents had a blast with their favorite Isabelle, favorite Claire and favorite Josiah in the whole world! They worked very hard to get a Christmas picture with these three cuties...still waiting for it to come in the mail :)

Our family is so very blessed!

Christmas Eve is when most of the presents get openned at the Hovis house and a picture almost exactly like this gets taken each year, like it or not.

Si made out pretty well in the gift department and for the most part we made it home with it all. One of our suitcases was 49.5 pounds. We think we've found a great new tradition that we learned about from some friends to help our kids learn that Christmas is not all about presents. It is so important to us that Josiah and any other children we raise in the future understand that Chirstmas is about Jesus, not Santa. Some friends shared with us that they give their daughters 3 gifts. The girls know that they get three gifts because Jesus received 3 gifts when he was born. I like it. I look forward to all the space-saving traditions that we can incorporate into our lives that will assit our growing family to continue living in an 1100 sf home.

We come to the end of 2009! It has been a big year for us! We have started an incredible journey as parents and feel so humbled as we remember what a huge responsibility and blessing it is. We said again today, as we do so often now, that we just really didn't know that our hearts were big enough to love anyone as much as we love our son!

2009 brought us some of the biggest joys and greatest challenges that we have ever experienced. We are so sure that God has placed us here for such a time as this. We look forward to beginning 2010 with purpose! To live this life to the fullest. To love well and to be faithful with each new experience we are blessed with.

Happy New Year!