William is 4 Months Old

William went to his 4 month checkup today.  He got a second set of booster shots which he hated.  His new assessment:

Weight:  16 lbs  7 oz         75-90 percentile
Height:   24 in                   25 percentile
Head:     16.8 in                75 percentile

So in summary, he is short and fat with a big head :)  He's our little chunker.

In addition to gaining weight over the last month, Will has accomplished a lot!
1.  Will has moved from sucking his knuckles to sucking his two favorite fingers, pointer and middle fingers.  Mostly on his right hand, but sometimes his left.
2.  Will is showing signs that he will be right handed.  He shows more control over the movements with his right hand.  He even sometimes grabs his left hand to adjust its position.
3. Will is showing signs of teething. I read that you can see signs 2 months before a tooth breaks the skin.

• He now slobbers all the time so he wears bibs permanently now...and they get drenched!
• He is sucking or biting his fingers, your fingers, toys, dolls.....everything he can pull to his mouth.

4.  He now sees toys you shake in front of him and will grab them.  Once he gets them, they go straight to his mouth :)  He's holding them longer and longer.  Mainly because his hands are grasping everything tightly and he doesn't even know he's still holding them.
4.  Will's legs are stronger. 

• He enjoys standing.  He can stand on his own with something to hold on to, like an ottoman. 
• He can pull himself to a standing position when you are holding his hands. 
• He takes steps on his own, so he walks across the floor when you hold him up and walk with him.

5.  Will started talking at the beginning of the month.  Babbling baby talk.  It lasted a couple weeks and I loved hearing him tell me all about his day.  By the end of the month, he quit talking.  He does very occasional short babbles only.
6.  Will giggled in Month 4!!!  We finally caught the video over Christmas, so you have to checkout the Christmas blog posting and watch the video of it.  Its so cute!  We're learning what makes him smile the most, which can turn into giggles sometimes:  holding Will above your head so he looks down at you, tossing him in the air, tickling his stomach, playing peek-a-boo, lifting his arms above his head, dancing or twisting his body left/right while singing.
7.  While on Tummy Time, Will rolled over on his own!
8.  Will pushes his upper body up and looks left to right while on Tummy Time.

We're looking forward to what he can accomplish in Month 5!

Here are some pics of William in Month 4:

William & John

We found some old photos of John on his first Christmas in 1982.  We got pictures of William in the same Christmas outfit.

Here is William in the same outfit on his first Christmas:

And then this shirt was a hand-me-down from a friend, but it is so true!!  What a lucky boy William is.  We had to get a picture with his Gran:

Christmas Day in Little Rock

Santa Claus came to Gran's house and left all kinds of goodies!  Our stockings were full and we all got lots of presents around the tree.

Little Will got a nice bath to be clean for Christmas Day.

Then he got dressed in his Christmas Santa suit.  Look how surprised he is to see all his presents!

We opened our stockings that Santa had filled for us.  Will got some Christmas beany babies.  The adults got lots of candy.  Good thing we don't have to share with Will yet!!  :)

Will got a cute new outfit from Grandma & Grandpa Edwards.  We took lots of pictures in his new outfit because he is such a cutie in it!!

  Next, we headed over to the Cathey's to open some Christmas presents with the Riley family. 

William got all kinds of neat stuff for his first Christmas.  His cousins were so excited to give him presents.  Thank you to everyone for thinking of Will on his first Christmas!!  :)  Here are a few of the gifts he got:

Christmas at the Cathey's is like nothing I've ever seen before.  There are so many presents and it is so chaotic.  It is a lot of fun.  Here is a clip to show how crazy it can get Christmas morning opening all the presents:

Check out Gran's silly hat that dances and sings.  Will loved it.

Will got to hang out with all of his family. He was passed around and spent time with everyone. He even took a few naps along the way. 

We got the chance for a Four Generation picture too:

Then we headed back to Gran's house to finish our own presents.....



Yes - this is a Chewbacca doll that makes Chewbacca's cry

William got so many fun presents:

After all the presents were opened we got to hang out and enjoy the Christmas music. 
We finally caught William giggling on camera!!!

Later Gran read Will "Twas the Night Before Christmas". Gran will record her voice in the book so Will can listen to the story at home too.

It was quite an exhausting day.  Will had a wonderful first Christmas!!  Thank you to everyone for helping make it so special :)