Vacation, part one

There are so many pictures from our recent vacation that I decided to split them up into the two "parts" of our vacation, one with Gezons and one with Aupperlees. I'm starting chronologically, so part one consists of pictures from the first part of our vacation.

This is Drew's first beach experience! On the Saturday that we left Lansing we headed to the beach at PJ Hoffmaster State Park. We set up Drew's sunscreen tent on the beach and plopped him down in the sand for the first time. It was a slightly overcast day, but it was warm and a little hazy. It was a great day for Drew's first time at the beach. Drew loved the feel of the sand on his feet! We quickly discovered that the sand gets EVERYWHERE with a baby. How did he get sand on his back? in his hair?
We kept Drew safe from the sun with sunscreen and his safari hat. He was so happy on the beach that I had to scoop him up for a quick picture.
You can tell that Jana is better at coaxing a smile out of Drew for the camera than I am. Drew maintained his serious expression here despite Jana's help with getting him to smile.
After a great afternoon on the beach, we continue north to Whitehall and the cottage where we stayed with Jana's parents. The cottage was located at Moxie Marina on White Lake in Whitehall. It was a great place for us to stay! From the front of the cottage you could see the marina and White Lake.We made the trip to the beach every day we were in Whitehall because for at least part of every day the weather was nice! Yeah! Grandma Lynn and Grandpa John were a big help with Drew at the beach so that Jana and I could relax and read or go swimming without worrying about Drew.
Drew did really well at the beach and he liked it as you can see in this picture with Grandma Lynn. We were thrilled that Drew did so well at the beach because going to the beach in the summer is one of our favorite things to do.
We kept Drew out of the sun in his sun shade, which you can see below. He even took his afternoon nap bundled up in the shade of his little tent.
We also brought his car seat down to the beach so that he could sit in the shade and look out at the water. Drew liked the view of Lake Michigan (and playing with his green cup).
Here are the three of us at the beach.
One of Drew's firsts over vacation was eating solid food. We started out by giving him a very small amount of rice cereal. Here I am getting ready to help with Drew's feeding. Drew's all set to go with his red spoon!
Drew loved to help out with the spoon, but we quickly learned that his "help" was more of a hindrance to the process.
In order to help him get the hang of opening his mouth for the food, we ended up holding his hands so that we could concentrate on getting at least some of the food into this mouth. By the end of the first feeding Drew had caught on and was opening his mouth for the spoon! Our little boy loves to eat!
By the end of his feeding Drew was so messy that he needed a bath. We brought along a little green tub for his baths away from home and Drew enjoyed it immensely. Who doesn't like to get clean after being covered with rice cereal?While we relaxed in the cottage, Grandpa John had fun playing with Drew and making him smile and giggle.
Another picture of the three of us! We loved having other people around to take our picture, so we're finally getting more of the three of us. We even got Drew to smile for the camera! Drew liked sitting on the swing in front of the cottage with Grandma Lynn.
Look at how happy Drew is! Jana captured him in this picture in the midst of a squeal of delight.
We had a wonderful and relaxing time with the Gezons. Next, we headed north to spend some time with the Aupperlees.

Drew laughing

This video is Drew giggling away while I am playing with him.

Drew in the pool

Last night Jana and I "weighed" Drew on our scale (I get on the scale and weigh myself, then Jana hands me Drew and we subtract my weight from the weight of both of us to determine his weight) and he's around 16 pounds now. He continues to become more animated, to get bigger, to get stronger, and to get even more fun to be around. We just had someone comment in church on Sunday how big his hands and feet are for his age, so like a puppy that grows into its paws, we expect that Drew's going to be a tall boy someday!

One of my favorite moments this past weekend was getting up to do Drew's morning feeding on Saturday. The two of us spent a little over an hour together before Jana got up and it was so much fun! Drew is at his best in the morning right after he gets up, so after feeding him we were giggling away and having a great time. I have to add a disclaimer that Jana almost ALWAYS does Drew's morning feedings, so Saturday was a treat for both of us. Drew is now wearing 9-12 month outfits like this onesie. He's not too big for most of his clothes; he's just too long!
Drew loves to chew on everything in reach. I got a kick out of him trying to get his mouth around the seal toy on his swing, so I snapped a couple of pictures. While doing this he produces tremendous amounts of drool. Mmmmm.


I continue to get the legitimate complaint that there are not enough pictures of Jana on the blog. She does most of the caring for Drew, but I get most of the photo opportunities on the blog. It just isn't fair! I'm trying to take more pictures of Jana, but we just seem to have a lot of me and Drew together. Here are a couple of Jana and Drew from this past weekend:
On Saturday morning we went for a hike before it got too hot out (it was still pretty warm even at 9 a.m. though). We haven't shown a picture of Drew in the Baby Bjorn for a while, so you can see that he has made enough progress in his neck strength so that he can face forward in the Baby Bjorn. As the hike progressed Drew got sleepy and he spent the last half hour sleeping with his chin resting on the front of the Baby Bjorn. Drew and I were both a little sweaty after the hike!
We recently purchased a pool for Drew and on Saturday I blew up the inflatable sides and put a couple inches of water in it. With temperatures in the 90s on Saturday, we thought it would be a great afternoon to "hang out by the pool." Below I am holding Drew as he gets ready for his afternoon by the pool. Hat? . . . check . . . Sunglasses? . . . check . . . Swimmie diaper? . . . check. Drew was ready to go!
Here I am holding Drew right before going into the pool for the first time.
Watch the progression as Drew gets ready to go in the water for the first time. Keep in mind that I filled the pool on Saturday, so even with the warm temperatures the water was a little cool. Drew's feet are about to touch the water.
I stood Drew up in the water at first. He looked rather skeptically down at his feet.
But soon Drew got used to having his feet in the water and he settled right in on my lap.
And then I tried to put him down into the water, and you can see that he didn't like that too much!

Drew did get more used to the water, but because it was cool he didn't like to be in it for very long. We're leaving the water in the pool for a day or two to warm up and then we'll try going in with him again!

He changes so quickly!

Drew continues to grow and start doing new things every day. It's so exciting to watch Drew change and develop day by day. We've been working hard on keeping him on a consistent schedule and he seems to absolutely love it. Drew also is getting much better about being around people other than Jana and me, so that has made life a lot easier for us (and Drew's babysitters!).Drew continues to roll over all the time, and that includes rolling over while in his bundle. He can now roll over in his bundle in both directions (stomach to back and back to stomach). In order to control his rolling Jana created some "bumpers" on either side of him. They worked for a day, and now he rolls right over them! Our little boy is becoming mobile! We were in Grand Rapids Friday night for a wedding, so on Saturday morning Jana and I took Drew to visit Great-grandma and Great-grandpa Vryhof's new apartment. It was very nice! While visiting Drew needed a bottle, and he held it on his own! He has made some attempts at this before, but this was the first time that he successfully controlled his bottle for an extended period of time. Good job Great-grandpa!
Both Great-grandma and Great-grandpa enjoyed watching Drew eat. He also showed off his other tricks and rolled over and stood up for them. Did you notice the background for the computer screen? (a picture of Drew!)
Also on Saturday Drew finally managed to get his foot in his mouth. He's inherited my flexibility, so it took him a little while, but now he can get that foot up to his mouth without a problem.
At the wedding on Friday night people were noticing the similarities in the prolifes between Drew and Grandpa Bill. Can you tell that Drew is an Aupperlee? :)
This week Jana slipped this rattle on Drew's foot and he had a great time with it! With something on his foot and a great grip on his cell phone Drew was very entertained.
On Sunday night Drew was pretty tired out while I was watching him and eventually he fell asleep in his swing! He was so cute in just his diaper that I had to take a picture. Look at his cute rolls of baby fat! (we're happy because that means he's happy and well-fed :)
We got a huge load of clothes for Drew from a professor at my work who was getting rid of all her baby clothes. Jana and I had fun going through the huge pile of clothes and taking a couple pictures of Drew in some of the hats!

On Monday night Drew was wearing his jaunty green pants, so we had to have a short photo session. Drew and I went into the lab for a little while and he looked great in his blue shirt and green pants. Does this mean I need a pair of green pants?


This is a random picture of how much fun Drew has with us. He is absolutely enthralled by whoever is not holding him, so if Jana holds him, then I'm the most fascinating and funny person in the world. If I'm holding Drew, then all he wants is to look at Jana. I think his favorite thing is to lie on the floor and have both of us looking at him!

more videos of Drew

In this video Drew is lying on the floor and playing with me. He does this all the time for me whenever I change his diaper or if I put him on his back on the floor and kneel over him to talk. It's so much fun!



This is Drew in the backyard in his sun tent. He was talking (you can't hear it over the birds), but I think you can see his smiles. He was having a great time with his cell phone in the tent.