Famous

Our local newspaper did an article on energy efficient housing so they wanted to feature the company that built our house. That led them to interview Lee and come and take pictures of us in our house. It was a much bigger article with more pictures than I imagined it would be. If you are local you may have seen it in Sunday's paper. If not, here is a link to the article but it doesn't have near as many pictures or look quite as impressive.

Spring!

As I am writing this we actually had snow yesterday and it is supposed to be cold and yucky the rest of the week...

But, we really did have spring/summer weather just last week. We loved getting outside and playing.

We have also loved watching our plants grow in our container garden!

...and drying our diapers out in the sun!

9 Months

Well, I am almost 2 weeks late with this post but better late than never I guess.

At our 9 month appointment last week James weighed in at 18 pounds and 27.5 inches. They didn't tell me the percentiles but I think his weight is about 10% and length is 20-25%. His height has definitely slowed down which seems to make more sense for him to fit in our family!

James is sitting very well these days but doesn't seem to be moving toward crawling. He can't seem to get his belly up off the floor. He pushes way up with his arms and bends his knees but that belly just stays put. He can pivot around on his belly and roll in any direction so he can get about anywhere he wants. He loves to stand up with his dinosaur or hippo (standing/rolling toys). He also loves to stand up against the couch or the ottoman. We just have to put him against those things.

He loves to show off his "touchdown" skills and has added waving and doing the sign for "safe". The two new skills definitely don't have a 100% success rate but they come out every now and then. James is also getting pretty good at drinking from his sippy straw cup. Each time I give it to him he will take a couple sips but spends most of the time chewing on the straw, handle, or bottom of the cup. The other day I made a little mango smoothie for him and put it in his cup. He sucked the whole thing down! He is also getting better at eating solid foods that have a little more solid texture to them. He loves to "talk" to us now and he is saying babababa and dadadada. I am pretty sure baba is his nickname for me because that is what he says the most! He's getting so big I just can't believe it!

Touchdown

James is learning many tricks these days. This is one we tried to teach him before the Super Bowl...he hadn't quite mastered it at that point. He definitely has it mastered now and knows that it receives lots of attention. We met someone new at story time this week and he grinned and did touchdown. Of course the lady didn't really know what he was doing so I had to explain. Some of his other tricks are to clap and sometimes he kind of signs all done. His daddy is going to play softball this spring so I am trying to teach him to do "safe".

The teacher in me is so excited that he is becoming trainable. He is a blank slate. I can teach him so many wonderful things now. But then I get paralyzed by trying to figure out what to teach him first and how to teach him all the things he should know...

Well, for now he can do touchdown...seems like a good skill every child should know!

4 Years=Stainless Steel, right?

Today, Lee and I have been married 4 years. To celebrate we are going out to buy a new trash can!

When we got married Lee and I disagreed about trash cans. He wanted a trash can with a lid but I hated the thought of having to touch the lid whenever I wanted to put something in the trash can. Then there is the trash can that has a lid with a foot pedal and the lid slams against the wall whenever you step on it then slams back down on the trash can. This kind will spray trashy liquids around your kitchen if they are on the lid.

When we got married Lee got me the best present EVER-a simplehuman trash can! This trash can lid goes up easily when you press the foot pedal then has a smooth close mechanism. It is a beautiful thing. I don't have to touch the nasty lid and it doesn't slam either. Well, about 6 months ago the lid broke. We have been living with a trash can without a lid. We have a baby who is quickly becoming mobile and wanting to touch things. Bad combination! It won't be long before he wants to rummage through the trash.

We joked that we would buy a new trash can for our anniversary but our real plan was to go to Lucky 32 for peanut butter pie. Then we got a stomach bug last week and didn't think we were quite in the right place to really enjoy our PB pie. SO, we went out to buy a trash can! It was very romantic...

8 Months

Well, James is now 8 months old. I didn't think I would have much for the 8 month update because I have been updating the blog more often. Well, he made the last week and a half very exciting so I would have something to talk about!

First of all I weighed him on the wii and he is about 17.5 lbs. now. I think he is making good progress with his weight.

James got to spend some quality time with his Grandma and Grandpa Wynkoop last week.

We had really beautiful weather so we got to spend some time outside playing, which James really enjoyed.

Other than that, he had a really rough week last week. He had trouble sleeping at night and for naps, and he was really congested. For a couple days I wasn't sure what was going on. Then I saw a little blister on his gums and figured he was teething but this 3rd tooth was A LOT worse than the first two. Well four days later another tooth appeared. When I looked inside today it appears there is at least one more tooth if not two or three on the horizon. No wonder the 3rd tooth was 3 times as bad...it was actually at least 3 teeth.

As if a mouthful of teeth wasn't enough for our week, James now has a little stomach bug. The past two feedings haven't done much to nourish him (without getting too graphic) they have done more to stain his clothes (and our carpet). We're hoping for an uneventful night and a slow recovery to regular eating tomorrow. We'll see!

Bath Time

This boy loves bath time!