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...

6 months

T turned 6 months old. For his six month birthday, he got himself the flu.

Yup, that's how I felt about it, too.

But he's getting better, and even sick he was one of the mellower little dudes you've ever seen (we did his chair pictures after he'd been fever-free for a day. He still has the cough). We did pull the swing out of the basement, because he just wanted to move, constantly, and frankly, he's getting heavy! (18 lb by the bathroom scale - doctor's visit is next month when E goes in for his 3 year)

T's favorite occupation is EATING ALL THE THINGS!

You have a thing? I'd like to eat it! Please, can I eat that?

Please? Banilla does not, in fact, taste like vanilla, despite my brother's name for him. 
(her?)

Happy 2013 - A look back (and a night at the zoo)

There are a bajillion "year in review" memes out there, so I thought I'd try one that amused me. I'm skipping all of the links I should put in, but feel free to check out the archives via the calendar over on the right-hand side here.

For those of you who aren't interested in random highlights, I'll throw in some pics from Zoo Lights. To fill in the pictures: 1) If you go to Zoo Lights, wear lots of layers (we knew this, note the obnoxious hat I stole from Ray). 2) Parking by the museum to get into the Zoo isn't that bad, since it's a lot easier to get out from there (I think some of my relatives will understand this). 3) If you see a long line at one side of the pavilion and noone on the other side, perhaps that's not the line for tickets, but the line to get in. Somehow we ended up inside without anyone taking the tickets that were part of Laura and Brad's Christmas gift. 4) Giraffes are just goofy.

Now, 2012 in review, per some random meme I found with a few extras thrown in:
-Number of full nights of sleep: about 6 since mid-July
-Longest nap on record: 4 hours for E?
-Number of bottles washed/diapers changed: Few bottles, but if you estimate 7 diapers a day since T was born, it's about 1200. E had a few diapers at the beginning of the year, but that highly traumatic transition is now forgotten. Really.
-Number of baby teeth erupted: 0
-Number of date nights the new parents have had: 3, but all were afternoons
-Hours logged at park or playground: So many. Fortunately most were with our neighbors at our playground, which makes them vastly more fun
-Greatest consecutive number of steps taken: T: 0 E: 8 bajillion, while reenacting an in-progress football game
-Number of airline flights survived by parents: 3 with 2 in tow
-Boxes of Mac + Cheese prepared: 52 meals worth of Annies, which is probably about 75 boxes
-Teeth lost/tooth fairy visits: 0
-Shows the parents watched all of due to disrupted schedules: Dance Academy, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy (you can guess who watched what)
-Weirdest music video our children have been forced to dance to: Gagnum Style (or Tigh-ey Style) (no they haven't SEEN it, but a baby doing the horse-riding move cracks us up)

Number of time T has been somewhere E would never have been at this age just because we wanted to take E: many, oh so many (Yes, that's T sleeping in the stroller in 18 degree weather, inside his spacesuit and one of my coats.)

Number of children who lost their ability to ham for the camera this year: 1
Most significant event this year: The arrival of one TR, of course
Other significant event: E potty trained and went from "toddler" to "boy" sometime this year (sniff), E started swim lessons, we converted the mudroom and redid the family room floor, we built vegetable gardens... yeah, this year has been largely about survival

Speaking of survival: Again, giraffes are just weird (what else fills this niche elsewhere??). E is now in love with them because this one started stomping and the zookeeper said she was mad because she was put in timeout earlier. E sympathizes.

Anyway, it has been an interesting year, and I'm sure 2013 will be much more eventful overall (although Ray is hoping for less terrifying individual events)!

We hope you all have a wonderful new year!