10 months

This little man turned 10 months old last week.

Things have been quiet on the blog for a while, because, well... life. I've got two busy bodies to follow, and one of them is hungry, so the dinner to bedtime stretch pretty much takes my whole evenings. I'm pounding away on classes while I'm at work, and then I've pretty much given over the weekends to spending time with the boys. Because how could I not? I have to keep up!

So, while I have long intended to do a bunch of catch-up posts with all the pictures from the last while, for now I'm just trying to get up to date. T may have to look at twitter to see what was up for these few months of his life. Of course, if he does, he'll see that it was all pretty darn busy!

And pretty darn awesome. He's mobile now. He was soooo frustrated that he couldn't get around that life was pretty rough for him between about 8-9 months. I expected him to be walking by now, to be honest, he was so determined to GET MOVING. However, he's pretty content with crawling and cruising, and he doesn't seem to notice that he can stand (if he notices that he is standing unsupported, he instantly drops to the ground).

At least he quickly figured out how to get up/down without slamming into the floor (unlike E). After a couple of weeks of constant forehead bruises a couple of months ago, he has done pretty well! He moved pretty quickly from rolling to an army crawl to what Ray calls his arachnid crawl (right leg sticking out to form a 90 degree angle off from his body). Now, he can get anywhere quickly and keep up with E, and that seems to be all he asks.

Well, that and more food, please. He'll eat ANYTHING (at least once). We skipped the whole puree thing this time and started him on things like strips of steak. Now, he eats more at dinner than I do (partially because he cries when the food goes in my mouth if he doesn't have any... hard to keep up!). Last week he ate a full chicken breast along with some sides... I think he eats as much as E and I combined!

He is a meatarian (lifelong commitment!) - he'll eat just about anything but would prefer that steak/chicken right there, please. Feeding him something new is always fun, since it's met with a look of total disgust- right before he swallows and asks for more.

E is his favorite person - E can make faces or just jump and land on his backside and T will LAUGH. Ray or I might get a chuckle, but nothing like the deep belly laughs E gets. This is handy, since E is often happy to just keep his brother entertained.

He's still a love and a cuddler, although... wait... off he goes again, wriggling his way down to go eat E's toys.

At least you get to check out the curls on his way by...

Friday Cute-Bathing Beauty

There have been a lot of snow clothes in our lives lately (windshield..frozen..from inside...). And thus a lot of snow clothes in the  posts. But just for Heather, I'm pulling out some old pics (from the Chicago trip). I know you need your Friday cute.
Hotel sinks can make decent bathtubs, if you're little enough.
Now go have a good weekend. Remember, I'm watching you...with suspicion.

Baumgartner Christmas 09

Despite Ray's schedule, we did get to do one family Christmas- and, fortunately, even overlapped with my brother Steve's family. With this many pilots around, that's decent.

I'll warn you now, there are a lot of photos- most of them hiding behind this link.

Monday Purple

Yup... Vikings get Monday night football this week. Things I never knew until Ray entered my life...
Shh, Mom.. we're trying to watch football! Hopefully Brett was good for Santa this year..

11 months

Our little boy turns 11 months old today. It's been quite a big month- not much in the way of teething, but a lot in the way of getting mobile and taking on the world. I'll try get some vitals up in a day or so, when we're done holidaying. But for now...




...it's been an awesome 11 months. He has changed a lot about how we look at the world. I like his viewpoint.  Again, I hope you all have found this much simple joy this week.
(if not, we've got a dowel we can send to you...)

Merry Christmas...

.. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Kwanzaa, whatever the appropriate expression, Happy Holidays.

I stink at Christmas cards, so I offer this as a expression of our good wishes to you and yours:

Music: Christmas Can Can by Straight No Chaser 
(Thanks for that, Laura and Brad!)

I hope it's a sufficient alternative. We did "Lafayette/Grunzinger Christmas" early, since Ray had a trip this week. La Junta/Baumgartner Xmas to come.

While Eamon did receive presents from us and the various Grunzingers, he most appreciated the boxes (Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa G!). I hope you all find as much joy this holiday season as a 10-month-old boy finds in an empty cardboard box. Which is to say: a lot.

Merry Christmas!

Laura, Ray, and Eamon

He sees you when you're sleeping...

Wishing a happy holiday to everyone!!
(binky thanks to an attempt to distract kiddo from the hat, not a new habit)
Hope you all have a great holiday - there'll be more from us here (your Christmas card? coming tomorrow...), but just in case we miss you over the next few days.

Edited to Add: I totally skipped the "go sit on Santa's lap" thing this year - it seemed like unfair torture. The daycare did it anyway...He was just taken from his favorite teacher... but he doesn't look so happy about the man in the big red suit, does he? On the other hand, this has potential to be amusing when he's 20.

Found the drawer..

Apparently, Eamon is also joining the ranks of humans in this house who object to how everyone else organizes things.

DOOM!

So, last week, this happened...


Yeah, he thinks this is great. He can make it up about four steps if he concentrates, but usually he stops, forgets that there's nothing behind him, and tries to put his foot down on thin air, resulting in a step or two slide downward.

Not sure what's happening...

...perhaps E is trying to explain the Vikings' stats to Marco?
Or perhaps he's just putting him on notice in general.
Sigh. I figure out how to get this high, and they just keep climbing higher.

Turtle Not Required For Modesty

Bath time is suddenly getting fun. Lots of splashing. Can't wait until he figures out how to make the turtle squirt water....

Yup, it's Sunday.

The game is on the radio (or phone, in our case) that's not stopping us.

Learning at Daddy Day Care

Ray and Mike ran a daycare at our place this weekend while Ann, Erin, and I got to run away to CU's Holiday Festival (which was awesome, as always). It's always a bit of a risk letting Eamon hang out with Ava. Like the Lessinger kids, she generally has something to teach him. And teach him, she did.

Hmm, that looks like fun. I wonder if I could get up there?

Fenced.. Out?

Hmm, what's this?

Hey, can you help me? I want to get over this... fence... thing..
Maybe you people out there can help me? What in the world is this, on the other side? It's big, and green, and it smells good, but those tall people who feed me and take my stinky diapers won't let me play with it. How much fun is that?
**sigh**

Conquering Warrior

I have conquered the mighty tree, and now I will carry it home. It is my prize.

(Yes, Ray succeeded in overcoming the Baumgartner procrastination and we have our tree up and decorated - done before December. Amazing.)

Thanksgiving 2009

Eamon had a lot of fun at my parents' for Thanksgiving. He found out about stairs in the safest way possible - in a house with, well, one stair. (Ray continues to find our insistence on using the terms "upstairs" and "downstairs" very odd.)
He got to watch little balls spin around, always a favorite pasttime.
And maybe he was giving Ray tips...
Of course, there was food. So very much food, and so very good.