Food Fun

This self feeding business is a lot of hard work and takes a lot of patience, fortitude, and endurance. Ethan has been grabbing for the spoon for awhile now and loves to eat finger foods so I've handed him the spoon a few times to let him practice. The sooner he learns how to self feed the sooner I'll be able to eat my Honey Nut Cheerios in peace without him squawking at me every 30 seconds as he eats the half jar of Puffs I dump on the high chair tray. That kid can eat!









Here he is feeding himself some yogurt for breakfast yesterday morning. He quite enjoyed himself and got very messy in the process!


This spoon business is rather hard to figure out.


I think I'll just dip my fingers in the bowl instead.


Yeah that's better. Much easier then this foreign spoon thing.


Yeah that's the ticket. Why limit myself to a finger if I can use my whole fist to get the food in?


This is pretty fun! I don't know why Mommy doesn't let me feed myself ALL the time!


Have I mentioned how much fun this is? And tasty?


The yogurt is gone but the spoon tastes good as an after meal dessert.

While I was snapping the pictures Grace decided to get in on the action and snap some pictures of Ethan with her Fisher Price camera.



Here's my budding photographer!

I don't want to nap!

A few days ago Grace refused to even consider laying down in her bed for a nap. No way no how was she going to do that. Nope. Instead she passed out on the edge of the ottoman in this adorable but uncomfortable looking position and proceeded to stay there for over an hour. And then she only woke up because Ethan woke up from his nap and she was just too irresistible a target to leave alone!



Here's Ethan asleep in the high chair last week. I was trying to make Grace's birthday cake so I left him in his high chair with plenty of food to keep him happy and he eventually slumped over and fell asleep. I was able to move him to his crib to finish his nap in comfort as opposed to Miss Grace.



My theory for why the kids are so sleepy? Because Grace won't stay in her bed! She's discovered how to open doors in the last few weeks and it's just too hard to stay put in her room at bedtime. Instead she escapes and pilfers through the bathroom drawers looking for hair brushes to take to bed with her. And then she comes and asks for some water. Or the Care Bears. Or the bug blanket. Or for a story. The list goes on and on. If she doesn't leave the room she empties entire drawers of clothes into the crib on poor Ethan. She used to have a nice bedtime of 8pm. These days we're lucky if she's asleep by 11pm!

Photo Shoot Mayhem

Have you ever tried to take photos of wiggly babies and whirlwind preschoolers? It's chaos. At least it is whenever I try and set up a photo shoot. This morning I attempted to get some pictures of Ethan for his 10 month birthday today (as I have every month) and Grace wanted in on the action as well. Since I haven't got her 3 year pics done yet I was more then happy to oblige! The lighting is poor today (where's the sun?) and Ethan wasn't really in the mood. After a lot of disastrous shots I finally gave up on the basket idea and brought Ethan outside. It's sooooo much easier to get pictures of him outside where I don't have a messy house as a background and the lighting is so much better. Big improvement. Unfortunately Ethan is getting closer to toddling each day and I know my time for good pictures of him are coming to an end. At least that's how it worked with Grace. As soon as she could walk it became an impossible task to get a picture of her A) Facing or Looking in my direction and B) Smiling. So I hope you have enjoyed the nice photos of Ethan thus far since I'm sure you'll be seeing lots of pictures of the back of his head or him running out of the frame shortly.

Grace jumped in the basket first so Ethan was sitting (topless...trying to keep his shirt dry until his turn!) next to me and grabbed my lens cap and kept trying to eat it.



Whenever I ask Grace to smile I get weird facial expressions that are nowhere near actual smiles. Here's what I got this time.



After trying to get pictures of Grace in the basket I had Ethan jump in with her. I got a few funny ones!





It didn't take long for Ethan to decide he didn't like being smooshed in the empty toy basket with Grace. Grace did her best to comfort him with her usual "It's ok Ethan" and kept trying to kiss him.



When it was finally Ethan's turn to be in the basket he either wanted to eat it or stand up in it. Neither of which worked out so well. Thus we ended the session and went outside. Problem solved.

Happy Ten Months Ethan!

Our little guy is 10 months old today! My how time flies! This past month has been a busy one and he's done his best to keep up with the rest of us. He helped celebrate Mommy, Daddy, and Gracie's birthday in the last month and spent a week in Idaho.

Here's what Ethan is up to this month:

He loves to eat food. Anything and everything really, but is utterly and completely addicted to Gerber Puffs.



He has his two bottom teeth, the second one popped through yesterday!

He is a super happy baby and smiles and claps a lot. He even dances with Grace and I when we're dancing by bouncing up and down. He's so much fun!

He takes two naps a day most of the time, though I'm not sure how long that will last. I kind of foresee him moving to one longer nap instead of two short ones which would be nice.



He is getting close to walking and I wouldn't be surprised if he is walking by his 11 month update! He can stand unassisted when he doesn't realize he's doing so, but if he realizes he's standing by himself he immediately sits down or grabs on to something.

He really loves to play with balls! He is really good at throwing balls and any other object within his reach as well.

He can use a sippy cup all by himself. I'm a big fan of this achievement since Grace didn't figure that out for a long time. I even bought him some Sesame Street cups of his own so he doesn't have to use Grace's pink princess cups. For some reason David thought that wasn't appropriate.



He went on his first plane ride in July and flew from Portland to Boise. He did pretty good both ways though he didn't want to nurse on the way home so he mainlined Puffs the whole time. Whatever kept him quiet and not throwing things in the aisle.

His sleeping is all over the map due to teething. When he's teething he's up 1-2 times a night to nurse but some nights (like last night!) he'll sleep until after 6am before waking to nurse.

He loves to blow raspberries which is just loads of fun during meal times. He loves to make noises and play with his tongue. Oh, and he still drools like there's no tomorrow.

100th Post and it's a Doozy

Last night at our MOPS meeting got me thinking about the theme of Adventures in Motherhood and my own adventure I embarked upon a few short years ago. We talked about making videos showing us in the throes of the adventure so I thought I'd let the kids play while I got some chores done this morning and let them make an authenic mess. How big of a mess could they make for heavens sakes? Apparently a pretty big one. Note, this is not staged. Not at all. Not even the pair of underwear that got wedged between the crib mattress and the crib slats. And yes that's Grace wearing two pairs of underwear and nothing else because that's the only thing she'll keep on today. Heaven help us.

Oh, and David please do NOT look at the photos below. I know you'll have a heart attack and might start hyperventilating. Don't worry. The house will be spotless by the time you get home from work. Maybe. If you work late.

Here is our lovely home after Hurricane Grace and Tornado Ethan hit...

Gracie Grew!

Grace had her 3 year pediatrician appointment yesterday and I'm happy to report that she grew...or at least stayed on her 10th percentile curve in both height and weight! This was the first visit that they checked her height while she stood up...such a milestone!

Here are her stats:
26lbs 4oz
35.25"
24cm Head Circumference (I think? Can't remember for sure) 3rd percentile but still on the curve!

Dr. Farah was happy with her development and told Grace how proud she was that used the potty, just like I told Grace she would be. I love Dr. Farah! She was impressed with Grace's language skills (she's a chatter box now and last year wasn't even putting two words together) and pleased that Grace is staying on her growth curve. We talked a bit about Grace's diet and she told me we can go ahead and keep Grace on whole milk which I was happy about. I was worried I would soon be buying three types of milk soon...whole for Ethan, 2% for Grace, and skim for David and me! As long as we don't notice Grace bulking up (ha!) she said it was fine. I'm also keeping her on the regular yogurt/cheese/etc. instead of the low fat versions that the rest of us eat. The other big discussion was that Dr. Farah noticed a benign heart murmur when she listened to Grace's heart while she was laying down but not when she was standing. I guess it's common in kids and may go away or may not. She said it wasn't a big deal but it's still not something a Mom wants to hear!

So all in all the big changes between her 2 year visit and yesterday were:

She gained 4lbs 4oz
She grew 1.75"
Her head size hasn't changed
She can put 2 words together (actually she has some long sentences these days!)
She potty trained

Time for slumber.