Busy, busy, busy...

Well, Rob and I are officially exhausted! Joel has taken to waking up in the middle of the night for a couple of hours at a time here recently. Last night he had me up from 3:15 until 5:30, when I finally just laid him down and went back to bed. He cried for a while but did eventually fall back asleep. We are clearly not used to "newborn" hours anymore! I don't know if he has teeth coming in, a cold, or maybe an earache? We simply cannot figure out what is going on, and are praying it is just a phase he is going through. I'm a little concerned how he will do over the holidays with all the commotion and a mixed up schedule. I'm sure he will be fine, but I don't know how much sleeping he'll do. We are so excited about Christmas! Mommy wrapped Joel's Santa present tonight. Wrapping is my least favorite Christmas task, so I started with a fun one! He doesn't understand what is going on....he'll be so confused! By the way, my husband swears that he looked at him and called him "DaDa" tonight. I told him that he is just hallucinating because of lack of sleep! I suppose it is possible, but he seems a little young for that. Who knows......I don't want to rush anything. He'll grow up fast enough! He is really getting good at crawling and makes his way around the living room pretty quickly when he wants to, or when he is chasing Bailey! (That poor dog has earned a spot in doggie Heaven, that's for sure! She is sooo patient with him!) He found her feeding dishes the other day and those of course enthralled him for quite a while. Taking care of him is way more challenging than ever now that he is semi-mobile. Mommy needs a nap! More later.....good night! (The pictures below are there to show some of his orneriness lately.....he keeps us on our toes!)