11 Months

Only 4 more weeks until that big first birthday. I had the realization last night that I have not rocked him to sleep nearly often enough. We usually just lay him down awake and he goes right to sleep. I held him a ton at the beginning before he figured out how to move. Now it is a rare occasion where he sits still long enough for me stare at that adorable little baby face. He had a hard time falling asleep last night so I went in and rocked him until he went to sleep, and then kept rocking a little more. I love holding a sleeping baby!
I can't even remember what he has learned this past month. Here are a few I do remember.

• We got him to try and wink and us last night. That was pretty cute watching those adorable eyelids flutter open and shut.
  
• He got his first 2 teeth this month.
  
• He does says 'sup' for whats-up and does the head nod thing that goes with it.
  
• He loves being read to.
  
• He loves playing with daddy. That is going to be so hard once Andy leaves for basic in 4 weeks.


• He signs please every time he sees me consuming food or drink, and if he really wants a bite he gets both hands signing please. I take that as meaning pretty please.
  
• He is climbing everything now. I had him at the mall the other day and let him loose in the play place. He was scaling a big rock think in the middle and he has mastered the slide. I get home and was organizing his clothes and found him on top the rubbermaid container reaching for the items on top of his changing table. Let me tell you he was oh so proud of himself.
• A few months ago he started switching sides on his own while nursing. You know, sit up, struggle to turn around, and then dive backwards. Now when he is done with the first side he stops and says 'done' and smiles cute, then we switch and repeat.
  

Well I am sure there are many more things he has learned lately I just don't remember them right now. It feels we have had a very busy month. Here are a few pictures with his bunny to mark a months worth of growth. It is getting to be fairly difficult to get these pictures. It has turned into a two person job. That boy does not like to sit still.

I've never noticed that before!

Apparently Dane just realized that I actually did spend some time and decorate his room. Every time we go in there now he is pointing at something new and smiling. Though our new routine is we have to say ni-night to the monster sitting on his shelf. He thinks that is pretty funny that we tell monster ni-night. So funny and entertaining in fact he won't lay his head down on my shoulder and snuggle for a minute before I lay him down. Bummer I just have to lay him down and he works the rest out on his own. Hopefully this passes and he finds time to snuggle with his mommy again since that is the only time he will sit still and let me hold him.

Andy called with some exciting news today. His managers at worked called him into their office and told him they wanted him to have the whole month of October off before he left for basic!! Meaning he will still get paid like we were planning and get to hang out with his family during the next several weeks. All they are asking so far is that he come in a couple times a week to check voice mail and email. That's pretty exciting stuff, actually it doesn't even seem possible, did I just dream this up? What a gift! Do you realize October starts one week from today? I thought we would have one last week together as he took the last week off before he left for the winter and now we have 4 1/2 weeks! I think I am still in shock.

Also today my dad is having the hole in his heart fixed with a minor operation. Pray everything goes smoothly.

Looking Back

Do you ever have flash backs or regrets on how you handled a situation and wish you could have a do-over? I am always having these thoughts, like I am such an idiot why did I ever say that? I have always been painfully shy and self conscience, especially growing up. I think I am finally getting over it, maybe it's because I am comfortable where I am at and who my friends are. I don't really know I guess I will find out when we move next year and I am faced with finding more friends and a new church and entering new groups of people where I don't know a soul.



I saw someone at a store today that I knew from college, they didn't see me and I didn't make myself known. Kind of because we were never really close friends, hardly talked really, even though we saw quite a bit of each other. There are quite a few people like that from college and even HS. People that I knew and I worked closely with them in one way or another yet we hardly talked. I was too shy to start a conversation and never wanted to make a fool of myself so I wouldn't make effort to jump into the conversation. I always thought maybe they were stuck up or snotty since they wouldn't include me. But thinking back on it now, maybe they thought I was the one that was stuck up and snotty, after all I was the one who wouldn't talk, or get involved in group conversations. And just maybe I was the one the that was snotty, too concerned with what other people thought of me to reach out and start a conversation of my own. And because of it I am left with awkward run-ins with people I should know better than I do. Do I say hi or should I pretend I don't know them. I wish I could go back and be a friendlier version of myself. Great thing God lets us have do overs when we don't deserve them at all.

We were on vacation...

Two weeks ago that is. We went to Colorado again. I think it was Dane's 6th time there?! It was a vacation though we stayed at my parents (free room and board with a built in babysitter) Can't beat that can you? It was a good time. Labor Day we headed up to Pike's Peak via the cog railway. I road it once when I was really little and all I remember was being to scared to get off the train at the top. The engineer had jokingly said that there is only one way down and you had to get back on that train or you had to walk down by yourself. Well I was not about to miss my ride so I figured I would stay near that train or better yet on it. I was way too nervous to enjoy the view. It was fun to go on it again, this time I should be able to more accurately remember it:o)

Wanna walk down? No thank you. I will take the train.

Dane really wanted to soak in the view and was not happy about looking at the camera so we squished his head between ours for a family photo where all are (almost) looking.

We did take 2 days and went to the mountains for a night. We stopped in Georgetown on our way to Breckenridge. This was a fun little historical mountain town. We took a tour of an old hotel. The only other people on this tour were 2 middle aged ladies and a crabbyish middle aged man. They really didn't want to acknowledge the young couple who (gasp) brought a baby on their $4 historical tour. It was a very interesting tour and we learned a lot of little facts. And at the very end one of the ladies commented on how well he did. Whew, I did have a few minutes of wondering if it was really such a great idea to take this 45min tour with a noisy 10 month old. He did really well.

We were in Breckenridge for a week in May and had sampled these amazing fresh hot donuts the day before we left. We thought that would make a great breakfast before we headed home. We got up early, left as planned drove down main street Breckenridge only to find the Kava Cafe didn't open for another half hour. Disappointment all around. Seriously I have been thinking about that little taste of donut all summer. We had some at the fair in August it helped satisfy the craving a little bit. So finally come September we had another go at those yummy little treats. Yup you got it, that's what we had for breakfast. And they were just a bit crispy and perfect, much better than the ones we had at the state fair. Check out how delicious they look.

After our breakfast and then brunch we went on a hike outside of Silverthorne. It was so much fun walking through the woods and all the beautiful views. Check out how excited Dane was at the beginning. He was actually happy as long as we kept moving or got him out. He pointed at everything.

And this is how tired he was on the way back down, what a sweetie. On the way back to Denver I realized he had sprouted his first tooth and a day later he got his second one!

We went to 2 of my brother's soccer games and one afternoon before his game that was in Denver we went and did a little walking around on the 16th St. Mall. I love big cities! Dane is having his first taste of Jamba Juice. Oh how I wish they had a smoothie place like that out here. I craved it so bad when I was pregnant and I still would love to get one every now and again. If anyone knows of one let me know!

Saying goodbye to his grandparent.

Fun Photo Friday

Here's to my first Photo Friday. A couple of cutie pies. Well not the first one. The first one I love because it is so fun to hold a sleeping baby! And the rest I obviously need some help on some captions. Enjoy!

Here let me fix that for you

Looks like siamese hunting twins

Uh, mom this is embarrassing!

10 months

It seems as though it has been a busy month. I can't even remember what all he has learned this month. He is crawling much faster now and is walking behind and pushing toys around the house. He likes to push as fast as he can if he goes too fast and falls he slides on his knees hanging on for dear life then gets back up and keeps going, such a boy he has places to go. Oh yes and he climbs stairs , fairly quickly now, must remember to keep the door shut. He is adding to his already existing vocabulary of mama, dada, ni-night, num-num, Magnum. Most of the time the things all sound fairly similar but he attempts to say thank you and duck. We tried to teach him to sign thank you but he decided it was easier to say it, but he can sign it now as well. Still working on signing please, he has done it a few times. He still has such a sense of humor, loves to tease and really cracks himself up sometimes. The biggest thing this month was learning to walk behind and push his walker around and walking behind anything else that slides across the floor. He is getting to be such a bugger. He loves to wiggle away from me and laugh his bald head off at his escape. Trying to get these pictures this time was a workout. By the time I laid him down, stood up, and got the camera ready he would take off for underneath his crib laughing the whole way. He is a ton of fun and we thank God for him!

A cute little sneeze

I have allergies in fall so he does hear a lot of sneezing. Actually he caught on from my mom sneezing and they started a fun little game. Now I just hope no one in the store is offended by an adorable baby mimicking their sneeze.

And for those of you who can't get enough of his laughter, here is another video where he is cracking himself up. He laughs so easy and I find his laugh very contagious. It is such a blessing to hear his joy. I love that little guy!