Play Time!

Abby and Shaun playing, or should I say, Abby trying to play with Shaun?

9 months old!

Shaun is 9 months old today! Here are his stats from his doctor visit yesterday:

Weight: 20 lbs 1 oz, 44th percentile
Length: 29 3/4 inches, 91st percentile
Head: 47.6 cm, 96th percentile

Doc said he is good and growing! He also got the first half of his flu shot. They break baby's shots into half shots a month apart. He did fine!

He also got his 9 month pictures taken. I will post them after we receive them back in a couple of weeks!

October!

We are crawling! First was the army crawl, and now Shaun is doing a combination of that and a normal crawl on his knees. See a previous blog for a video of the army crawl. He can also now sit back up from being on his tummy, back or crawling, which is new this month too. We also finally put up a gate in the house. We have been needing to do it for about a month now, since Shaun has been mobile via rolling. However getting a gate became more pertinent a couple of weeks ago because he can now move so fast. The gate is for the living room because that is where we are the most when Shaun is on the floor. Our living room is by itself, between two sets of stairs (I know, not very baby friendly), so we gated off the entry way to the room. We made sure to get a walk through gate so it is not a hassle to get through. Abby also has to get used to the gate because she is used to wandering the house as she pleases to get food, water, and most importantly into mischief! Hopefully the gate will help reduce her getting into mischief! We will get another gate for the top of the stairs eventually too.

Shaun also is pulling himself up. He loves to do it on anything that will allow him to, especially Daddy! I think he is going to be a climber….. We had to lower the crib mattress because he can pull up in there now too. Several times I have come into his room and he is standing in his crib waiting, sometimes quietly, sometimes not…

Shaun also has 8 teeth coming in! They just keep coming! He had a runny nose for a while due to teething and it still comes and goes and is a sign that more teeth are coming…

We had some fun gatherings for Halloween and a fun time at the pumpkin patch (see previous blogs). Shaun was a pumpkin. First was our dress up playgroup. A lot of Shaun’s buddies came in their costumes! What a cute bunch of 8 month olds! The second was a dress up day at baby class. I joined Shaun and Daddy while the class paraded around the hospital to show the nurses and staff their cute costumes. See the link at the right for October pictures.

We started doing baby sign language at 6 months. We are hoping that someday soon he will be able to do some signs back. We are doing signs like: eat, milk, all done, Abby (dog), mommy, daddy, etc to start with. He has learned to clap, so hopefully that is a good “sign”. Hehehe…. He gets so proud of himself sometimes and starts clapping and smiling, it is so cute!!

Nap time has become a struggle. He is taking short infrequent naps; some days, only 30 minutes, twice a day and other days he may take an hour at a time. Thankfully though, most nights he still sleeps well, going to bed at 8:30.

I can’t believe my baby is 8 ½ months old! He is growing and learning things so fast.

Halloween playgroup!

We had a Halloween dress up playgroup tonight! What a cute bunch of 8 month olds! Here are some pictures:

Shaun the pumpkin!

Shaun, Kirin and Nadia

Mady the fish

1st annual trip to the pumpkin patch!

We started one of many new traditions in our family today! We went to the pumpkin patch at Craven Farms in Snohomish. It is nice to have one (ok many) right down the hill in the Snohomish valley. This one is geared towards young children with a lot of things to play on, a petting zoo, hay ride, corn maze, face painting and of coarse the pumpkin patch! It was good to have nice weather today and the days leading up to today so it wasn't muddy (looks like it could be if it has been wet). Here are a few pictures from today. I'll post more at the end of the month in the October pictures.

The "Army" Crawl!

Shaun has learned to do the army crawl!

2nd Annual Applesauce Making Party!

Last year, my sister, cousin and I decided to carry on the tradition of making applesauce that my Grandma did every year when she had apples. I have two apple trees in my yard and the three of us were craving Grandma's applesauce that we hadn't had in 6+ years, so we said, "Why don't we make it"? We went to my Grandma and asked her for the recipe, (which she gathered from memory) and we were off! My two trees produce enough good apples for about one batch so we bought some more so we could have a lot of applesauce! This year we did it again and carried on our part of the tradition! This year we even had a food mill to mash the apples. Last year we had to literally mash them ourselves which took a lot more manual labor. We were all so excited to have the food mill after seeing how much easier it was! Thank you Mom and Dad for the present! Shaun even got in on some of the action! Here are a few of the pictures from yesterday! We made a lot of applesauce!!!

Apples ready to be made into applesauce!

Cutting up some of the apples!

Apples cooking!

The food mill!

Taste testing the flavoring!

One batch of applesauce! We made 3!