HEIGHTS

caught you climbing up the stairs today. You were crying because after making it up four stair you weren't quite sure how to get back down. Turns out you are afraid of heights and loud noises.

8 MONTHS

We've been doing a lot of hibernating this month. Its cold most days, and mom's car only works half the time. But don't get me wrong, this has in no way slowed you down. You are mobile. You are climbing, crawling, opening drawers, playing in toilets, getting into my crafts, and escaping everything. You can now get out of the bumbo, the bath tub, and you seem to think if you try hard enough you can escape your crib, fortunately you can't. It's been wild.

You love the water. You have gotten to that age, like every baby does, where anything mom is drinking is worth dunking your hand in. We aim the shower head at you face, and you just laugh. You think splash wars with your brother in the tub are awesome. Mom doesn't.

You hate, I mean screaming tantrum hate, being on your back. We have always known this about you, you prefer tummy time, but these days you are strong and fight back. It takes two to change your diaper, one to pin down your arms to keep you from rolling away, and one to quickly tackle the diaper while you twist your body back and forth screaming.

Your favorite toy by far is a Mater toothbrush. It's funny, Gage went through this phase too. You boys love to watch me get ready and toothbrushes are so appealing. I always keep one in my diaper bag for emergencies. You seem happiest while you are down in your room. You can really get around and climb on everything in there without help. It's great for mom, because I get lots of reading in while you and Gage independently play. The only problems that occur are when Gage knocks you over. You hate that, so you scream. Gage goes to time out, so he screams. There are days that go by that mom wishes she had ear plugs because there is a lot of screaming.

You are eating me out of house and home! Our routine in the morning normally involves me preparing breakfast for you and Gage. I then feed you while taking moments to encourage Gage to eat. Those "moments" are too long. You cry between bites because I can't feed you fast enough. Once you two finish eating i take my time preparing myself breakfast. problem is, when anyone else is eating food, you think you should too. it doesn't matter where i hide, you come crawling over, stand up holding my leg, and cry until i give you a bite. You LOVE greek yogurt. But you have also been known to steal anything you can get your hands on. I even caught you putting away chicken nuggets when Gage decided he didn't want them. You don't have teeth yet, so you just gummed through three nuggets and were so happy. To save some extra money I started making you baby food for m scratch.

You are an awesome sleeper. After struggling for the past few months to get you to sleep through the night, we decided to stop swaddling you, cold turkey. I thought for sure this would be a process. That first night you slept 13 hours. Turns out you sleep really well on your belly. Should have caught on to that earlier. Swaddling made it hard to flip over and get comfy. After we bathe, read stories, and say prayers, we rock you for a minute and put you in your crib. Most nits you and gage talk for a minute or two and then it's silent until about 8am when I hear both of playing in your beds waiting o mom to come get you. I feel pretty spoiled.

Your infatuation my phone is getting out of hand. Maybe it's the fact that its forbidden territory for kids, and that makes it more appealing? I have never seen you crawl faster than when I leave my phone in a place you can see it, you come charging just to put it in your mouth to get a taste. Or is it that you LOVE to FaceTime dad? You think his face is pretty funny even if he isn't saying anything.

You have developed stranger danger. You don't really prefer one parent over the other, you just need one of us to bury your face into when anyone gets too close. You still hate loud noises and cry when I vacuum.

You got your first haircut! Ok, I have been trimming the long strands on the top of your head for some time now, but we used real clippers to trim up around your ears since it was getting pretty straggly. You hated every second of it, until I gave you a toothbrush and turned on the water in the sink, then you could care less that I was trimming away. You look so grown up now!

This month more than any other month, I have just wanted to bottle you up. Getting older certainly comes with its difficulties, but you are the sweetest guy and you make me feel so loved. I love that you tug on my pants, and that you love to be held. I sometimes rock you to sleep and hold you in my arms for way too long before putting you in your bed just so I can stroke your chubby cheeks and kiss your soft forehead and breathe you all in. I love you baby boy.

GRADUATING FROM AN INFANT CARRIER

Somebody had to graduate from the infant car-seat carrier to a big boy rear facing car-seat!

(waking up from a nap in your new seat)

I don't feel as though you are much bigger than your brother at 7 months, but even after loosening the straps as much as we could, in order to buckle your car-seat  we had to pinch your chubby thighs. So, you have been upgraded. I think you like that you can see Gage more, but you hate that you are not as reclined. The first two days were awful. You have since learned how to fall asleep with your head dangling to the side and you seem much happier!

7 MONTHS

You are the best eater. You eat rice cereal or oatmeal for breakfast, and fruit and veggies for lunch and dinner with bottles in between if necessary. You love all food. And when I say "love" I mean "LOVE." Its not uncommon for you to start crying and grab the spoon yourself and shove it in your mouth. Apparently mom and dad are just too slow! You have even started eating finger foods and snacking off mom's plate. The other night we went to a pizzeria for dinner and you contently sat in a high chair chewing on crust for the entire dinner.

Your favorite toy in whole wide world is a blue plastic hammer. Dad calls it your Thor Hammer. You push it around and suck on it, occasionally hit yourself during the course of the whole day.

Remember how I said you were sleeping 8pm-8am? Well, that lasted approximately two weeks. Then we went through a period you started to wake up at 4am yelling until we put your pacifier back in. A few weeks later you were making it til 6am before crying, I would put your pacifier in and you would sleep til 9am. I felt like we were finally making some serious progress, until last week. You started waking up at 3am and again at 5am, never to eat, you just needed attention. The more often I had to go down to get you the more I noticed that it wasn't the pacifier at all. If I was near your bedside you fell back asleep, and if you noticed I had left, you burst into tears. Time for another round of sleep training?

You are always on the move, in a very non traditional way. You can get absolutely anything you want by simply hopping onto your knees and throwing your body out as far as you can and getting back up to start it over. We now have to keep pants on you because your knees got such bad rug burn one day that they started to bleed. You hate being left along, so when I am in the kitchen cooking, its only a matter of minutes before I feel you tugging at my pants for attention.

You fake cry for attention, it sounds kinda like "ya, ya, ya, ya ya!" You fake laugh to be a part of the conversation, it sounds kinda like a miner's cough. And you yell when you are mad, it sounds a lot like "ma, ma, ma, ma ma!"

You no longer use a pacifier during the day, but you like to have it go go to sleep.

You are getting really great at playing by yourself. I sit/stand you in front of your activity table and you bang away for a good 20-30mins unattended. You have not yet figured out how to get from a sitting position to your knees without falling over first, so once you feel your independent playing time is over you start to yell at me to turn you over.

You love electronics. You have even figured out how to do a 4 finger swipe on the iPad and switch to the previous app we were using. This interference causes a lot of problems when you and Gage are watching a show on the iPad. But if I switch the iPad out for a remote controller you seem just fine. You even managed to kill momma's phone by drooling. How you got it in the first place I have no idea. Guess momma better get better at keeping valuable away from you.

Your spitting up has slowed! I say that with excitement. I can't contribute it to baby food, because when we first started you on baby food you were spitting that up too. You still need a bib during most of the day, but I don't need extra outfits for you and me for every outing. I think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

You get shy when anyone comes close and you like to bury your face in my neck. You have started crying when you see me leave the room, but as long as I leave without your eagle eyes on me you will go to anyone and play without noticing I'm gone.

We are loving your sweet personality. You have the roundest cutest head, and these puffy kissable cheeks. You carry all your fat in your thighs, your dad tells you often that you get that from me. Momma and Daddy lie awake at night thinking about how fun you have become and it takes everything we have to not go pick you up out of bed and cuddle you.

CHRISTMAS

(A Christmas sneak peak)

We always start Christmas off on the 24th with your Grandma and Grandpa. Its like your cousins hadn't seen you in years, they wanted nothing more than to make you laugh. Gavin think that squishing your cheeks together is the trick. Following a ham dinner is a Christmas themed message. This year as Grandpa read excerpts from Luke, all the cousins got to open little presents. Each present was a part of the nativity. Next we attempted to do a little musical number with pipes. I say "attempted" because I think everyone in attendance would agree we failed. Next we opened jammies. This is  momma's favorite part, I love new warm jammies on my soft sweet babies. Lastly, we open ornaments. You got your very first snowman ornament to add to your special Christmas tree.

Once we finish our festivities upstairs all the cousins line up and head down stairs to see their stocking and open presents. Its a wild experience, and it becomes more wild the bigger this family gets. You cried a few times because you have a hard time with loud noises, just like momma. Your favorite gift byfar was not even a gift, but the ribbon with a bell on it used to wrap your gift. Go figure!

As expected, you fell asleep on the drive home. You slept surprisingly well despite being very much off your schedule, you made it to 8:30am. You got lots of loves from your daddy while we waited for Gage to get up at 11am. We spent Christmas morning with Nana and Papa. Santa brought you a sit to stand activity table. You and Gage fight for it on a regular basis. Its the one toy you can spend 20 minutes playing without interruption.

We had a yummy omelet bar for brunch and hung out drinking WAY too much juice until it was time to drive North to Great Gma's house. You were welcomed by lots of mommy's cousins who just couldn't believe what a happy baby you were. On the occasion you got tired, Papa was there to bounce you. By midnight you finally were ready to turn in and were over all the excitement.

It was a successful Christmas with lots of food, fun and family.

FESTIVITIES

A lot of wild sledding, gingerbread making, temple light seeing, and Christmas tree decorating went down last month. Tis' the season for festivities, and we certainly made the most of it.

6 MONTHS

You weigh a whopping 18lbs 13oz. You officially weigh nearly 2 pounds heavier than every other baby we know around your age. Everyone agrees, you are solid.

This month you mastered an army crawl. The moment the Christmas tree went up you were doing laps. I would put you my room, minutes later you were attacking the bows on all of the presents, and then we would start over. I started to regret putting the presents out so early.

You sit up now, but you hate it. You are normally whining or crying because you can't figure out how to get back on your tummy. You like that you are mobile, it means you can reach whatever you want, and momma doesn't normally put you close to anything while you are sitting.

The spitting up has not slowed, and your nana is giving me no sympathy. Dr. Schmidt says that most babies grow out of this by the time they are 8 months so we have to wait before he will even consider medication. I think all of our clothes, and our over worked washing machine are pretty sad about it.

You love to be held more than anything in the world. Papa came to visit and everyone was amazed how long you would stay happy beyond your nap time as he bounced you for hours.

You are eating pureed vegetables. Sweet potatoes are your favorite. 2/3 of the way through a vegetable you start making sour faces, but if I mix in another flavor you can down close to 7 oz. You still prefer to have bottles, because bottles equal cuddles.

You have this special way of really bugging your brother. You seemed to be obsessed with anything he is touching and you maul him until you can touch it too. Cries are inevitable, but never from you, always from Gage who knows he is not allowed to push or shove you, but is struggling with learning how to share.

Your most favorite toy in the whole world a a string, or anything that resembles string, like hair.

I love your little personality. I love that you have developed a little stranger danger and that you need me. I love that you can smile with a binky in, and that you have a fake cry and a fake laugh. I love that you are healthy and strong, so so strong. It is such a joy to watch you grow, but I am ready for you to stop.