Friday Photo Dump - Baby Dedication and Silly Faces

I'll forever treasure this photo - our family and small group praying with us over West, for him to come to know the Lord and glorify Him with his life. We are so blessed to have so many people in our lives who love our boy and care not only about his physical growth but his spiritual growth too.

9 months!

Here are some highlights and tidbits from the last month...

Things West has learned:  

We've got a walker on our hands!  Well, he's taking steps at least.  He took his first real steps on May 25 - he only took two but they were very steady.  Since then he's just kept practicing and practicing and can walk 5-8 feet before falling.  We'll try to post a video soon.  (Update: see a couple of videos here.)

Twice now this week he's stood up from the middle of the room without pulling up on anything.  (Update: since I first wrote this on his 9 mo bday, he's done it a lot more!)

He shakes his head when we tell him no, even when we're not shaking our heads.  He went through a stage when he loved shaking it all the time, but now it's usually only when we tell him no.  I guess I did it often enough while telling him no and he caught on!

He can finally read books (sometimes) with me without just trying to put them in his mouth the whole time.  He even turns the pages and points at things on the pages sometimes!  Of course, he still just wants to eat them a lot of times.  

West is getting better at waving.  Often when we say hi and wave at him, he'll raise his hand up in the air.  He doesn't actually wave it, but at least he raises it!

He can open drawers and cabinet doors.

He is 'talking' all the time, but we're still not sure if he knows who mama and dada are when he's babbling.

When he's into something or has something he knows he shouldn't and we see him, he will actually take off crawling in the other direction with it as fast as possible!  Little stinker!    

Things West loves:

He still loves his walker and has figured out how to scoot it around whatever he runs it into, so he can use it walk all over the house.  It's so fun to watch him because he really seems like he prefers using it to walk to get where he wants to go over crawling.  I can't say I blame him - bare knees on a hardwood floor... I'd want to walk, too!

He loves being outside, where he bear crawls in the grass (he apparently doesn't like his knees on the grass, so we try to put him in jeans but most days lately it's just too hot for that!), plays with the water hose, and tries eating the mulch (ugh, I wish he didn't find it so fascinating!  I'm constantly snatching it out of his hands before he can get it to his mouth.).  He's been in little kiddie pools twice last week - once with his cousins and once with our neighbors - and he loves it.  We're planning on getting a little one for him soon.  (Update: we got him one last weekend and he LOVES it!)

He still loves baths and can almost pull himself up and over to get into the tub!  He's such a climber.  Also, he's figured out how to flush the toilet, so of course now he wants to do it all the time when he's in there.  Combine that with his affinity for unrolling the toilet paper and pulling trash out of the trash can, and you can understand why we still keep the bathroom doors closed at all times.  :)

Things he loves that he shouldn't love:  He is obsessed with electronics - our phones, remote controls, computers, etc.  He's always climbing up on the hearth so he can stand up and bang on the glass fireplace screen - I feel like all day I'm telling him no and pulling him down!  For some reason he loves getting my hair brushes out of the drawer in the bathroom and chewing on the handles.  He always wants in to the fridge and dishwasher - wherever he is when you open them, you know you only have about a few seconds before you have to close them!

How West eats/sleeps:

We transitioned him to a 4 hour schedule/routine at the beginning of his ninth month and it is going great (meaning he eats every 4 hours during the day).  He wakes up about 7, naps from 9:30-11ish and again from 1:30-3:30ish, and then goes to bed at about 8.  I usually wake him up to nurse him before I go to bed at 11 or so, and he usually sleeps through the night from there.  He does sometimes wake up and cry for just a second or two at 5 or 6, but puts himself back to sleep most times.  On the three hour schedule he was on for so long I had to try to force an extra nap in there and he always fought it, and I had to wake him up from naps early to feed him, so this schedule is much more age appropriate.  The only reason we had held off for so long was to keep an extra feeding in there for his weight, but we've been monitoring it every 2 weeks and he seems to have adjusted well to it.

As far as eating solids, there's not been much change since this post here.

How West has grown:
He's in size 3 diapers.  While I bet he could still squeeze into size 2 diapers, he was soaking through them within a couple hours so we made the step up.  As far as clothing, it's tough to say since brands vary so much.  For the most part, he's in 6-9 mo.  Carters' 6 mo onesies still fit him but are getting a bit snug (mostly snug in length), and their 9 mo ones fit him but are baggy (they fit him in length but are big around his skinny waist).

He got his top two front teeth when he turned 8 months and he's working on the top two side ones (lateral incisors??) as he's turning 9 months.  At least he's spacing them out for us!

He had his 9 mo check up today (which was why I held off on posting this) and he weighs 17 lbs 4 oz and is 27.25 in long (both of which are 10-25th percentile, though much closer to the 10th than 25th so I don't know why they don't just say 10th).  I was a bit disappointed but his doctor was actually pleased with it.  She was also really impressed with his development because his score was equivalent to a 13 mo old!  The best part of this check up today?  No shots!  Yippee!  :)

*See all of his monthly pictures here

Evening stroll and mini photo shoot

We took a walk this evening down to a little dirt road I spotted awhile back.  I've been dying to take some pics here and my boys happily obliged tonight!

 

Walking!

I'm still working on West's 9 month post, but in the meantime we thought we'd share a couple videos Brad took of him walking earlier this evening.

He took his first two steps on May 25 and can take several now!  He can also stand up without pulling up on anything.  We joke that his small size helps him out!  ;)  We're pretty amazed at his balance.  When he actually takes his time and takes it slow, he can walk 8 feet or so!  He can even pivot and turn directions when he's really on his A game.  He's also pretty good about falling back on his bottom most of the time (unlike in the second video below!).  Even when he does fall forward, he's a pretty tough little guy and just pops right back up.  He's seriously the best entertainment ever!

Landscaping

For Mother's Day my big gift was the promise of tackling landscaping the front of the house soon.  When we put the contract on our house to be built, there was $500 allotted for landscaping and I was so excited about having all that money to play with.  Well unfortunately, I never got the chance because one January day before our house was complete we came out to view it and they had already exhausted the $500 on 4 boxwoods, 3 alleghany virburnum, and a tree.  Cue sad music and disappointed face here.

I will say the boxwoods weren't so bad, it's just we didn't water them the first 5 months we lived here because we were young and dumb (you could definitely argue we are still those things...) and didn't know you're supposed to water things even in the winter so they ended up looking all gangly on the bottom and are going to have to be cut down completely this fall and we'll hope the new growth will look better.  (who knew?)  The viburnum, however, were plain awful and their location was even worse.  They were the first things you saw when you looked at the front door and were just an eyesore.  So we knew we'd eventually want to redo it all, and after almost a year and a half here we finally dove, or dug, in.

Before shot.  Notice the hideous "flowering shrubs" (alleghany viburnum) in front of the steps and the gangly boxwoods in front of the window.

Phase one:  Dig Rite marked utility lines and we figured out the outline of the new bed.  We used the hose first and then once we had it how we wanted we lined it with flour.  If you look closely here you can see in some spots where the white flour line is.  You can also see West chillin' in the pack 'n play.  (Who are we kidding?  If you know West, you know he wasn't chillin' in there, he desperately wanted out and part of the action.  So he was in there for maybe 10 mins.) :)

Phase two:  sod is torn up and plants are torn out.  We actually plan on transplanting them to the sides and back of the house here soon, so we're keeping them alive with their root balls wet and wrapped in a sack in the shade until we can replant them. 

Phase three:  fill dirt is in place.  We wanted a mounded look but had to make sure it didn't slope down towards the house at all, so it was just a lot of stepping back and eyeballing it. 

Phase four:  take some family pictures in front of the plants once we have arranged them exactly the way we want them.  :)

Phase five:  dig and plant!  I'll be completely honest here, I only planted 2 of the plants.  In an effort to keep things moving along and get done sooner, Johnie and Dee offered to plant everything once we had it in place while we ran and picked up a couple more plants and the mulch.  They're amazing like that.  :)

Phase six:  mulch, water, and enjoy!  Ah, this kid and his strange love for water hoses.  

Notice we laid some of the transplanted sod in front of the steps.  We love how it makes the front door look more inviting.  

Speaking of the front door, we bought a couple of planters to dress up our little porch/stoop.  Our favorite part about them is they were cheap white/gray plastic ones for $10 a piece and we spray painted them with Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint to dress them up.  We love how they turned out!  

We still have our work cut out for us - we have to replant the boxwoods and viburnum, plant a couple lilac bushes my mom got us, mulch around the tree in our front yard and maybe plant some flowers at its base, and re-pot our hibiscus tree, but we have come a long way and love how it's all shaping up!