2 months

On Friday JT will be 2 months! He has his two month doctor's appointment where he'll get his shots. Last week when I stepped on the scale with him, he weighed 10 lbs. This week he feels heavier and even has little fat rolls! So cute. I wonder how big he'll be Friday? JT has so much personality now. He's more like a little boy than an actual baby. He smiles now and it absolutely melts my heart. I spend most of my day oohing and awwing over him rather than updating my blog (sorry!) Here are some things we've noticed about him:
-loves to have his feet rubbed
-he likes Notorious BIG, Fiona Apple, Marcia Ambrosia and any slow R&B music or music with acoustic guitars
-he's reaching for the toys on his tummy time mat. He can entertain himself reaching for those things for minutes
-he likes to give kisses! It's the cutest thing. He even gave Maya a kiss and she reciprocated with a big lick on his face!
-his hair is more of a dark, chocolatey brown color like mine rather than black like Murad's. His hair hasn't turned curly yet, so we think the soft waves are here to stay
-when he smiles he makes his eyes go to one side and he also likes to ball his fists up near his face. both are things we noticed in Murad's baby pics
-his eyes are a medium shade of brown like Murad and Abby's instead of dark brown like mine.
-he can roll over on his own
-he still sleeps with us in the bed, but we're slowly transitioning him to the pack n' play and then to his crib in his nursery. My anti-cosleeping hubby is now on board with it, so he's stayed with us a little longer than expected. It's kind of good because since he's learned to roll over he rolls to his stomach during sleep. It really freaks Mommy and Daddy out, so we're keeping him in our bed so we can flip him to his back. He has an AngelCare monitor in his crib, but not in his pack n' play, so we haven't figured out how to monitor him in the pack n' play.

Some more updates:
Grandpop Joel and Gigi came to visit at the end of June! What a great time JT had with them. He received a new swing and mommy and daddy received a digital photo frame and coffee maker! It was so cool to see grandson Joel (JT) and Grandpop Joel interact
New friends - JT has quite a few friends his age. This past weekend he met Isaiah Jr. (3/31/2011) who came from MD to visit his grandparents in Richardson. His friend Walt was born in KC on July 16th! Walt and JT were only supposed to be 5 weeks apart, but with JT arriving early and Walt a week late, they are almost 2 months apart! He has a friend arriving 8/11 in Lawrence, 10/11 in Sweden and 12/11 or 1/12 in Denver. Lots and lots of friends for him to meet!
Baptism - We are excited that JT will be baptized next month in my hometown. This is the same church at which my brother, my mom and I were baptized. That weekend JT will also meet his big sister Abby for the first time, as well as his Uncle Ryan and some great-grandparents.
JT had his first cold - not fun, but it only lasted 2 days.
Updates for the Soup family:
I've been cleared to work-out! I started last week. I only went 3 days, but it felt really good to do intense cardio and lift weights. I kind of overdid it on the abs (because let's face it, that's the area that needs the most work!), but I'm going to start back up slowly. I lost 15 lbs immediately after having Joel and then kind of plateaued. Last week I lost 3 lbs. I figure if I average 3 lbs a week, I'll be back in shape in no time!
I go back to work in exactly a month. I'm so dreading it. While I know that JT will be fine in day care (in fact, Mr. Soup and I both agree that he will be better cared for at day care than with us ....lol...no but for real), it's still hard for me to imagine leaving him all day long. I know my day will be amazing when I jet over to daycare to pick up his smiling face! I'm trying to soak up my JT time now. I think I'm averaging 5-10 photos and videos daily. I don't have the patience to upload them all on here, but I've posted quite a few on Facebook. He's just so amazing. I love capturing his little world.
Mr. Soup and I have decided to start a non-profit! I'm going to be blogging about the process as we'll be going through the filing with the state and the IRS. Right now we're in the infancy stages: gathering our board of trustees, filling out paper work, etc. After that we'll wait and wait and then we can finally start applying for funding. Our goal is to be up and running next fall (2012). It kind of started out as an idea that we thought sounded good, but when we started talking about it to people we realized there really is a need for this kind of organization in the community. So many people have volunteered to help us with everything including working with the IRS and other legal matters. We're hoping that once this all gets running in a couple of years, that we'll be able to spend more time with JT. We also love the organization, because it combines our passion for education and social services. Like I said, I'll try to blog about our ups and downs with starting a non-profit. Right now, I'm working on the mission statement and some materials while I'm on maternity leave (in the little time when JT is sleeping or when I'm nursing him)
Mr. Soup took his social work licensure exam. He missed passing by six lousy points. He saw one of his classmates there and she only passed by 2 points. Most of his friends failed by 20 points, so he's glad he's not in that boat. He'll take it again in October. He was able to identify the area in which he needs to improve: speed. The test is only four hours long and he realized he took too long on each question and wasn't able to go back and correct his answers. So, he's going to do drills once a week until the date of the next test. I'm still very proud of him. The LMSW test is one of the hardest tests out there.
I think that's it for the Soups! Til next time!