4 months old, and I am already slacking on posting the same day

So here is a quickie. . the pictures were taking on the 21st so they are official, I just have slacked and delayed putting them up for two days.  Hey, I work til 7 on Tuesdays.  Mino has surpassed his 4 month anniversary of being birthed.  He has almost caught up to the size of the bear and is able to sit up much better than he could last month.  He is also finally feeling a little better and gave me a few smiles. . . .

 

 He still likes to show off his crying face for every photoshoot.

 And wanted me to put this one up, he is so proud of being able to almost fit his whole fist in there.

 And for the ridiculous photo of the week:

Apparantly I don't give him enough credit.  In my mind he just figured out that he can whack really hard with his fists when he is eating to get his mom's attention, or he can eat them.  But I guess I didn't give him enough credit.  A 4 month old baby can paint.  I have been a bad mom and not letting him express his artistic abilities while at home, here I assume he is crying because he is sitting in poop but alas he is crying because he wants to sketch.  This is the daycare picture of the week.  Happy quarter year wee Mino.

Schnozzberries

What can I say, my child is in daycare = My child is sick.  Poor guy has had some form of cold or snot or cough since Christmas.  Well, I take that back, he had a break for three days right when I started work.  Poor guy is now taking his first prescription medicine, Amoxicillin!  Yeah!  Martin thought it was pretty cool that we could choose the flavor for it, so trying to keep things on the straight and narrow he chose apple flavor.  However, this morning we discovered that it is either super sugar stuff that the call "apple" or they gave him bubble gum.  Either way, he is a sticky mess and probably gets half of his dose each time.  

Enough of that boring stuff though. . . sick or not, Mino is a man of the house and has really reached out to try and bond with his brothers.  Portos likes to choose when he cuddles, he doesn't like it forced upon him - Obviously.

 

Wallace on the other hand will take loving wherever he can get it.  Whenever we have Mino in the kitchen Wally will get up on the counter and rub his face on Minos hands.  He probably is getting some form of food from them (this child has nasty stuff between his fingers at all times - toe jam finger edition.)

 

 But obviously Portos and Wallace are happiest when Mino is just a little picture on a screen and asleep in the other room so they have their daddy all to themselves.

 Mino has been getting better and better at tummy time.  He still doesn't loooove it flat on the ground, but if he is propped up he will enjoy it for quite a while. 

 Last week in fact he demonstrated a new skill. . . .Raspberries!

Other than that we really haven't had too many adventures this last week and a half.  We have just been having some good old fashioned family time.

 

 

 Mino has been getting much better at sitting up too.  He finally has mastered the bumbo chair at home!  However I learned at my first Parent "Teacher" conference at day care (is it weird that I just think it is funny that I am on the parent side of that equation now?) that those chairs have been recalled due to kids cracking their skulls open.  However, it is because people are putting them up on high surfaces and not their intended way on the ground.

 And I hope you can see here the huge drool line extending from his mouth on down.  He can drool like the rest of them.  He is still too young for it to be teething, so I think he is just a boy and mastering a craft of gross bodily functions that he will soon be able to use against me.

 He also loves to chew on his hands.  When I am feeding him he will sneak his hand in there and start sucking on his fingers rather than drinking milk.  I have to pull them out of there and may soon need to get baby handcuffs to keep those things away.  Remember how I mentioned toe jam of the hand, well I swear I do wash his hands so that he isn't eating it, but I think that I just have to accept that nasty jam will just help boost his immunity.

 The biggest event in the Felices household was the acquisition of a Dyson vacuum cleaner.  Martin has been wanting one for the longest time and I am a cheap tightwad and really had issue with spending the big bucks for a vacuum.  However, with Minos Uncle Otis coming here a lot, and now that my prego hormones are gone and I am on a fast track to baldom there has been a plethora of hair that was just too much for my little Eureka which all but went caput.  It is good at sucking spiders from the ceiling but the roller is not too effective anymore, so I caved, and Martin is the new Real Housewife of Crystal.

 Also, I have to interject that I love Mino.  I think he is just adorable and in nearly every picture I take he looks it.  However, I can admit when I take something that just makes him look off, as if that weekend visiting the Magic Hat Brewery right before I found out I was pregnant had more of an effect than I thought. . . . and here it is. . .  UGLY MINO!  (But thanks for the great Red Sox shirt Novartis peeps!)

Enough of that nonsense.

Now for the closing saga of cute Mino pics. . .

Sleeping superhero Mino

 Bundled traveling Mino

 Happy daycare Mino (demonstrating his new smile with his tongue sticking out between his smiling lips)

 Sitting happy daycare Mino.

Laughing? The jury is still out

 Well, we have a few big developments that have occurred since I last checked in.  First and foremost, our wee little Mino has fully discovered his hands.  He has always kinda liked chewing on his first when he gets hungry, but now, the right one is constantly in his mouth.  Even after he finishes eating so much that he pukes a good chunk of it out.  Zoop, hand in mouth.  This picture pretty much sums up what he has been up to:

 I put one up a bit ago of him holding a toy, but now he actively searches out what he wants to hit, or what he wants to hold.  It is so neat.  One of the things I dread most is putting the little guy in his eggshell to ride in the car.  He HATES it unless we are actively moving.  If I was a swift person, perhaps in one foul swoop I could strap him down then whisk him out and have the car in reverse in the span of 20 seconds, but lets get real.  I am not.  That takes me 5 minutes and he lets me know that I am waaaaay too slow for his style.  This sentiment is usually amplified when I get him after his day at daycare because he is usually hungry (because I tell them to hold off feeding him after  a certain time so I can when I get home) and I usually am interrupting his sleep.  So Thursday, I braced myself for the heart melting squeals but he didn't.  He sat there and played with the toy that we have had strapped to the egg shell since day one that mostly just makes it harder for us to put him in.  I spoke with his "teacher" and lo and behold no screaming.  Wild.  He plays now.  Awesome.  And now a snippet of my wise little man:

His Nana came to visit and brought him a little rattle that he manages to grab on to pretty well too:

He is also getting better and better about holding up his head and using his neck muscles.  The angle from which I am able to capture these is really not the most flattering, but who is looking.  Surely not his girlfriend Delia from daycare.  Yes, according to reports I get, he has a lady friend.

 

 So since he can manage to not flail about from his neck, he is able to go into some new toys.  The one we were most excited about was this one. . .a Jumparoo!  He has jumped a couple times, but totally accidentally.  As you can see, this thing is enormous.  I think we are considering moving just to accommodate all of his stuff.

 So daycare sent me this picture of him sitting in a bumbo chair.  My friend Becca had highly recommended this device so I thought, hey, what a great thing. .

 

So I tried and this is what I got:

 Another fun thing I get to look forward to each week is Tuesday nights because Martin picks him up from daycare so I just get to come straight home to my boys.  This week, they were all together cuddling:

The best part is that this is not at all staged, this is how they were naturally.  I do believe that I did something wrong raising those pets, here's hoping I worked out the kinks on them and Mino turns out OK.
I got this picture of Mino and Martin and I thought it was a great picture of the both of them:

 So, after having Mino I have been having a little trouble dropping all of my baby weight.  I read something that said it took 9 months to do the damage so give yourself at least that to undo it.  That is my mantra every morning.  Anyway, little Mino felt bad when he came out so skinny so he has decided to pork up a bit so that his mom doesn't feel too bad.  I love his little let rolls and chubby feet.

 The first weekend in February was the Hot Air Affair in Hudson, WI.  I had been hearing about this since summer time so was super exstatic to finally head over.  Then I read the schedule.  Balloon launch : 7:30 am, Saturday.  Not going to happen.  But as I was up at that time feeding Mino I checked the website to see if there was any weather issues and sure enough there was.  Our warm Minnesota winter has yielded some really foggy mornings with a warm air mass that moved in, so balloon launch was delayed to 3 pm!  Yessss, we were off in the afternoon to go see them.  We rolled in right at 3 and didn't see any balloons on the launch field so thought were were good as gold.  Turns out the afternoon launch was a no go too because there was too much mud.  It was 41 degrees and all of the snow had melted and the ground was warm enough that it was a mud field.  Amazing weather, too good for hot air balloons.  Two teams still inflated their balloons so we could see them which was neat. 

 

Dogs were not allowed on the launch field, I don't know if they have had problems with dogs thinking the balloons are large balls or what, but never the less, Portos got to stay in the car.  To our surprise when we got back he had made himself nice in comfy in the most luxurious seat in the car.

What a smart dog.  (Can you see his naughty ears??)
And a closing note of a cute Mino. 

 

Remember how I said there were two big developments?  Well twice now I have picked up the little guy from daycare and they have told me that he was giggling at something or laughing at something else.  I chose to not believe that I would miss my guys first laugh, so I figure that they were just misinterpreting his sounds.  But as I was changing his diaper tonight I do believe that I heard a distinct chuckle.  Twice.  I ran for my video but he wouldn't do it again when I got back.  Hopefully next post will be jam packed with Mino laughs.