9 Months Old!

Well, I can't believe it. I know I keep saying that, but I really can't! I have a 9 month old little boy! That's 3/4 of a year! He has been OUT of me for about the same amount of time that he was IN me. I'm going to have to say that pregnancy felt a lot slower than the last 9 months have been. As much *fun* as being pregnant was, having a baby takes the cake! Especially now that he moves, smiles, babbles, eats, and is gaining more independence. I'm loving it.

As usual, here is his 9 month photo I took today.

And the comparison over the last 9 months!

As he gets bigger and more mobile, you can imagine that it would get harder and harder to take these monthly pictures. I'm lucky to get one where he's sitting still. That lasts about 5 seconds. The next collage is of the nine photos I took during today's photo shoot. You can see he was much more interested in the bear than in looking at me. Fortunately, the first one was good! My other favorites are probably the bottom left (eating bear's nose) and bottom right (so proud that he's standing on the soft) photos.

Some new stats and updates:

• Eating habits are about the same (6 to 7 ounce bottles, 4 times a day, plus solid foods once or twice a day). 
• We've broken out the larger bottles and the fast flow nipples.
• Size 3 diapers, but will transition to size 4 in the next day or so as the 3's run out.
• Clothes: Size 9 month, 6-12 month, 12 month, quickly growing out of 6-9 month.
• Weight is probably around 19.5 lbs. Height is about 26 inches, I think.
• Just started babbling "ba ba ba ba" last week! (See video)
• Developed object attachment this month. If you take something away that he was playing with, he will most likely start to cry because he's mad. Especially if he can still SEE the thing you took away.
• Knows what his bottle is. If you show it to him, he starts to freak out until he gets it in his hands.
• Getting more and more stable with standing (supported), crawling, and standing up on unstable objects like our chairs or his jumperoo, which sways around a lot. I want to get him something to help him learn to walk as it moves. Hmm.
• Has his two bottom teeth! I'm just waiting to see when the next ones will pop through. As he gets more teeth, I'll feel more comfortable giving him more "grown up food" because he will be able to chew better. 
• Current grown up food that we have tried and he will eat: crackers, peeled and sliced grapes and blueberries, peaches, strawberries, noodles, cooked beans, small bits of bread. 

I also want to list some of the things I love the MOST about my wonderful little boy:

• His long, beautiful eyelashes
• His toes
• The way he kicks his feet while sitting when he gets excited about anything
• How excited he gets when I come into his room after a good nap and he sees me
• That little, sweet voice that I'm getting to know now that he's babbling - melts my heart every time!
• When he thinks he's a big boy because I let him brush his teeth (see video) or play on the sofa or eat big kid food.
• Those chubby cheeks
• His slobbery, wet, wonderful kisses
• That LAUGH. Oh man. 
• His pouty lip when he's sad
• How I can tell he loves me so, so much
• Blue eyes... need I say more?

The other day I caught him after he had gotten into the toilet paper for the first time. Oops! I normally keep that door closed for a reason. Here's his guilty/"I'm too cute to be in trouble" face. :)

And finally, a couple little videos to enjoy that illustrate some of the things I was telling you about. Brushing his teeth and his "excited feet":

And babbling with daddy:

Sometimes when I read about or talk to others about how their child is developing, I feel like saying "Hmm.. Charlie definitely doesn't do that yet", but then I remember that babies are so unique, and develop so differently on their own schedules. I have such a smart little boy, and he is MY little boy. I am so happy to have him in my life. 

Life As My Phone Sees It 7/16/12 - 7/25/12

Still loving having Instagram, and taking way too many pictures of my boy! Enjoy these gems :)

7/18 - It was laundry day, so I put Charlie underneath the laundry basket to play and he loved it! I know it seems a little bit like a baby prison... buuuut he was happy so I wasn't complaining!

7/18 - Later that day we went visiting teaching. We saw Dani and her sweet 1-year-old son, Christian, who loves to give Charlie kisses! It's so freaking cute when they play together, crawl around together, and sometimes even take toys from each other and get mad. It's hilarious. Poor kids are going to need to learn about "sharing".

7/21 - I let him eat strawberries for the first time without the mesh feeder. He thought they were yummy, but of course they are very, very messy! Having him wear long, white sleeves and a white bib probably wasn't the smartest idea I've ever had, but fortunately it all came out nicely in the laundry! Sweet boy.

7/25 - My little 9 month old (as of today!) just LOVES to "brush" his teeth. Okay, so he isn't very effective, but at least he likes it and he's getting practice for when it really counts, right?!

Another post coming soon with all the 9 month stats and pictures! Yay!

Twenty Five Years

Oh wow! Wouldn't you know it!? I'm a quarter of a century old. How did this happen? Better yet, WHEN did this happen? Oh... you're right. It was last Friday the 20th. Silly me. Well it was a lovely day. I got to spend the evening with 3 of my closest girl friends having a girl's night out (yes... that means NO kids!!!) in Salt Lake. Woo hoo!

I was so excited to get to explore City Creek Center mall for the first time. It's absolutely incredible. I have this raging desire to go back as soon as humanly possible. We ate dinner at Cheesecake Factory (one of my all-time FAVs!). Our fantastic waiter took this picture of us at the table. We look absolutely fabulous, if I do say so myself:

Of course I ordered the Godiva chocolate cheesecake (my ultimate all-time favorite dessert, ever!) and they decorated my plate with an appropriate "Happy Birthday to You". Oh yes, they also sang to me. I sang to myself too. Yes. I did. It's my birthday and I'll do what I want, thank-you-very-much!

Forced the ladies to take one more pic outside in the courtyard at City Creek. It was all lit up like a summery Christmas present. I'm pretty sure my heaven will look a lot like this mall.... :D Thanks for humoring me, friends!

On Saturday, I got to hang out with my sweet hubby and son. It was a fun, relaxing day. On Sunday, we made sure to break out my birthday "pie". It's one of those thaw and serve cookies and creme pies from the freezer section in the grocery store. It was delicious. Who needs a homemade cake anyway?!? You may be able to see that my candles are in the shape of the numbers 25. That was the hubby's creative idea.

And me, the birthday girl, holding my cake-pie. We took this picture ridiculously fast (after singing ridiculously fast) so we could dig in and consume it! Om nom nom.

Please excuse my crooked shirt. Apparently I'm still learning how to dress myself, even at 25 years old :) It was a fantastic birthday weekend!! 

Salem Pond + Instagrams 7/6 - 7/15

Our big family holiday week ended with an afternoon trip to Salem Pond to eat dinner and hang out one last time with T's family. Since so many of us had been sick during the week, we felt like it would be nice to eat dinner outside and let everyone get some fresh air. It was a beautiful, breezy afternoon!

I let Charlie try watermelon for the first time. He wasn't sure if he liked it in the beginning, but quickly decided he enjoyed it. He even took a bite using his little teeth!

I realized after a minute that watermelon is pretty fibrous and doesn't really dissolve. Charlie kept rolling it around in his mouth and "chewing" on it, so I eventually had to take it out with my finger before he tried to swallow it and maybe choke. Watermelon is now on the list of foods to eat with the mesh feeder or just a little later when he has more teeth and can chew things up better. :)

My two boys, contemplating something deep...

We let Charlie do one of his favorite things - crawl around in the grass and try to pull it up and eat it :)

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I've been slacking a bit on taking photos through Instagram. Since I really only have two to post, I decided to lump them in with this post instead of make a whole new one. Both of them were taken on 7/10.

For this first photo, I was tagged in another "What You're Doing Right Now" post. I was in the middle of trying to keep this mischief-maker out of trouble! He loves to stand up and dig toys out of his basket.

And then I kid you not... 2 seconds after I had a chance to post the first picture, he was sitting on the carpet and decided to make a nice little poop. So nice, in fact, that it ended up squeezing out the side leg of his diaper ONTO MY CARPET. Yuck! So, needless to say, it was a "crappy" moment and the best thing for all of us was to get Charlie in the tub. And get some Resolve carpet cleaner soaking on the spot he made. Instead of throwing him in his baby tub like I normally do, I let him have his first bath in the big-kid tub!

I think he rather liked it! That is, until he stood up against the edge and his feet slipped and he fell over into the water and scared himself really good. *Sigh* Too bad you can't reason with an 8 month old and tell them they need to stay sitting in the tub. Back to the baby tub it is... just for a little while longer! :)

Oh, and in better news, the spot DID come out of my carpet. Thank-you-very-much! :D

Hogle Zoo - 7/6/12

Continuing our holiday week extravaganza, we decided to join Charlie's cousins for a morning at the zoo. I was unsure if we'd make it since Charlie had come down with a fever the day before, probably having caught the bug that his Grandpa Russell had. But he seemed relatively normal on Friday morning so we decided to travel up to SLC to Utah's Hogle Zoo. It was the first time for both of us! I was so excited. We got there in time to get on the first train ride of the day.

Mical and Cole deep in conversation, with Scarlett and Callie in the background, waiting for the train to start.

Shortly into the train ride, Charlie started fussing, which is very unlike him... so I began to worry a bit. It didn't take too long to realize that he just wasn't feeling 100%. By the time we got home that evening, he was back to lying on the floor from a fever. I felt awful about taking him to the zoo on such a hot day when he didn't feel well. :( We will have to go back sometime soon so he can maybe enjoy it a little more.

But anyway... I got lots of pictures of the animals. They are all so pretty, although I'm sad we missed the giraffes (my fav!). Honestly, I felt a little bad for the animals living in the zoo. I know they are well taken care of, but I still couldn't help but feel bad that they weren't roaming free in their native habitats. However, it is nice to get to see animals that you wouldn't normally get to see in your lifetime, and so I decided to enjoy the zoo experience :)

We saw an elephant family,

Many species of monkeys,

Bald eagles,

Sea lions swimming right by us,

The new polar bear eating and doing flips in the water,

Brown bears cooling off,

And tigers (so beautiful!!).

Shortly past the tigers, my poor sick boy finally passed out for a nap.

So he missed the oh-so-not-exciting camels. Haha!

And then some kids yelled and he woke up within 10 minutes. Ugh. In this picture you can tell he's trying to smile through his discomfort. My little trooper.

Charlie waiting as patiently as he could while I watched and took pictures of some of his cousins on the carousel. (We would have gone on it, but I knew it just wasn't worth it this time.) From L to R: Maddi, Cole, and Scarlett:

Next we were off to our last stop, the small animals building, where we saw cute little owls (another one of my FAVORITE animals!!),

Some more small monkeys and primates,

Sleeping bats,

Exotic birds,

And lots of reptiles and snakes. Here are Charlie and Scarlett taking a peek at this large boa:

So glad it was behind glass! Although it does have a sort of grace and elegance about it... don't you think?

Finally, here is the Instagram collage I put together from our trip. You can totally see here that Charlie isn't feeling like his normal self:

It was a fun experience. We hope to go back one day... maybe not this summer, but soon. When Charlie's a little older and T will have time to go with us! <3

Fourth of July - Fireworks

Keeping with tradition, we all met at Meghan's house later that night on the 4th to shoot off fireworks. Luckily, this year was relaxing and completely incident-free, even with fireworks that shot in the air, unlike last year!! Yay :)

Just playing around with the "fireworks setting" on my camera, and fun filters, of course:

And I had to again include this close-up of our sweet, sleeping boy who passed out on his Daddy after a very long and fun day!

Little did we know that he was probably coming down with the 48hr sickness that Grandpa Russell had the day before... poor little guy.

Fourth of July - Heber City Family BBQ

Later during our Fourth of July holiday, after baking some cookies and delicious brownie bars to bring, we drove to Heber City, UT for the annual Cummings BBQ and get-together! This year, instead of doing it at the park, we did it a few blocks away at a nice events building behind the local church building. I'd never seen anything like it before. It had a kitchen area, covered (and somewhat indoor, but also outdoor) seating area, and deck with a lawn. Since we had to forgo the playground, Grandma Deanna rented a blow-up water slide for the kids to play on. Didn't get any photos of it, but it was a hit!

So anyway, here are my pictures of the occasion. Of course, most of them involve Charlie! I decided to use some new Photoshop filters I found online for these photos, so please let me know what you think, which ones you like and don't like, etc!

With Grandpa Russ

With Great-Grandma Deanna:

Cuddling with Grandma Jill...

...and then sleeping just a few minutes later!

Candy flying through the air from the traditional candy gun (Charlie will be loving this next year!):

With Daddy and Uncle Trent:

Showing his patriotism:

Love these photos... he's playing a game with his Daddy that they play a lot. Charlie will start to whine/cry and then T will start yelling back. It then turns into Charlie doing "fake yells" like his Dad and making this hilarious face. Just imagine both of them going "Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" at the same time. My favorite is in the third picture how Charlie has just thrown his head back in a warrior-style yelling pose. Adorable.

It was such a fun day, but it wasn't over yet! Soon to come, fireworks!! Again, let me know what filters and pictures you like best :)