10 months

Our little lovey boy is 10 months old! I cannot believe how fast this is going. We have already scheduled his one year pictures and are thinking about his first birthday party. Crazy. This has been a busy  month with less milestones but more building on the ones he has already achieved. The  big one this month is 2 teeth! Finally this kid has some teeth! He isn't going about getting them normally though. Usually kids get their 2 bottom middle teeth first. Owen has gotten one of his bottom middle teeth, but his second one is a top tooth! We can see the other bottom tooth right there but it has not officially made an appearance yet. He is now  moving very quickly when cruising along the couch and practically runs down the hall while pushing his dino. He is also standing independently very frequently now. And a few times he has taken a  step forward. But he is crawling so fast that I don't know that he is all that interested in walking at this point. He uses that crawling to chase Jacob around the house, usually while Jacob is on his bike. Owen has also discovered that he can open and close cabinets and doors. He loves to pull out all the Tupperware in the kitchen and throw it around and he will close doors just for the heck of it. He is still on a pretty good napping schedule and we now have a babysitter coming to our house on the days I work so I don't have to wake him up to take him to the friend that had been watching them. We are hoping that helps him with his naps and night time sleeping. He still wakes up 3 times a night to nurse. He occasionally goes one or two nights only waking up twice which is always nice for us. I will love the full night of sleep when he finally sleeps through the night, but I will miss that calm cuddle time we get then.

Not a great picture because my camera isn't working.

Stats

We have been so busy here lately. This has been our first down weekend in a while. So a week ago we had the boys joint 4 year and 9 month appointments. Jacob had his hearing and vision tested this time. Both of which are great (apparently he just has selective listening, no hearing deficit). I figure he has at least 6 more years before they tell us he doesn't have 20/20 vision. He had to get 2 shots and he was not happy about that at all. He told the nurse he was never getting shots again. Fortunately he doesn't have to get anymore until he is 11. Hopefully long enough to forget this time. But he is perfectly healthy and a little genius. Owen just had a quick check up this time. And he is perfectly healthy as well, although has dropped down in the percentiles just like brother did at this age. No shots for him this time which was a nice little break for him.

I am taking both boys to have routine blood work on Tuesday. I'm not sure how that is going to go. I am scared. Hopefully they both cooperate fully and don't cry or fight it. (Ha)

Jacobs 4 year stats:
Height: 40.75"    61%
Weight: 40lbs     80%

Owen's 9 month stats:
Length: 29"        69% (the dr actually thought that may be wrong and wanted the nurse to remeasure but it didn't get done)
Weight: 22lbs     79%
Head:  19"          98%   (our boys have big heads)

Happy 4th Birthday Jacob!

Happy Birthday big boy! You're 4 today and definitely not a little boy any more. You have grown so much this year and taken all the new challenges in stride. We have watched you become the greatest big brother Owen could ask for. You are so loving and playful with him and it is so wonderful to watch you try to help him or make him laugh. You have such a passion for learning and it is so fun to watch you learn something new and be so proud of your work. Your endless energy is amazing and the random I love you's and kisses throughout the day melt my heart. You bring us so much joy every day and I love hearing all the stories you come up with. I don't think we could have ever imagined just how wonderful having you as our son has been. Love you big boy!

Party Day

We celebrated Jacob's 4th birthday today with a fun party with all of his friends. We had a tough time deciding what to do for his party this year. We would have liked to have it at home (because it is less expensive!) but with his birthday being in January we never know what the weather will be like and couldn't count on being able to use the yard and we didn't think the majority of the kids were old enough to get playing party games. So after some online research we found a really cool gym that we decided would be great. We had showed Jacob pictures of the gym and he was so excited. We even made a paper chain to count down the days until party day. So this morning he was thrilled that we finally got to go. There was so much to do there and he had a blast running around with all of his friends. He did some flips into the foam pit (and daddy did some flips too!) and went on a zipline across the gym! It was such a great experience!

After the party we headed home and he wanted to get out some of his presents already. He got a scooter from Grammy so we put that together and he went for a ride on that, then he wanted to play with his new play doh toy. He still has lots of new toys to play with and I'm sure he will be into them first thing in the morning, but tonight he was out quickly.

I can't believe he is almost 4. Four just seems so much older! So I will enjoy my 3 year old for a few more days before he is officially four.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9 Months

Another month has some how passed and we now are the proud owners (I definitely just typed Owen there) of a 9 month old. This has been quite the eventful month here. Of course Owen celebrated his first Christmas and first New Year. He is so full of personality and this month it has definitely started to show everywhere. There is no more army crawling. It is all crawling or walking along the furniture, bathtub, wall, whatever. He has discovered that he not only can leave the room that he is in, but he can follow me and Jacob around the house. I have frequently lost Owen in the house for a few minutes when he follows Jacob and then either gets distracted or can't keep up when Jacob leaves a room. His favorite thing to do while I am busy in the kitchen is follow Jacob around or play in the play kitchen. This month has also brought a ton more talking for Owen. Lots of mamas and babas and sometimes he will throw in a pa in there. No dadas yet, but we try to encourage that. He will call me mama and Jacob baba and he just started calling Josh mama too. In addition to the talking he screeches. Loudly. He loves to hear his echo and will sit in the hallway and just screech over and over and over. It is so loud but hilarious. He also screams. Slightly less high pitched than the screech. But the scream is used to tell us when he wants something, food, sleep, blankie, a toy, to nurse, attention. I was slightly worried about Owen not talking much because Jacob talks so much, but with this recent development, I am reassured that he will make himself heard.

Owen has also started playing with Jacob so much more. He wants to play with whatever Jacob is playing with, eat whatever he is eating, be where ever he is. He loves his brother so much. His favorite thing to play with right now is Jacobs legos. He loves to unlock the lego box, take the lid off and dump all of the legos out and bang them. Then he plays with the box then picks up the big yellow piece and chews on it. As of today, he still has no teeth, but there are two little bumps on the bottom so we are anticipating them any day now. The lack of teeth does not affect his eating at all though! He eats everything we eat. His favorite food right now is graham crackers. He loves them! He is also fond of prunes, pears, apples, and waffles. Oh and feeding Cosmo. He likes to throw stuff off his highchair to see how fast we can get to it before Cosmo gets it. He has also started using a sippy cup for water. He seems to have figured it out fairly quickly. It hangs out in the living room during the day so he grabs it randomly and drinks some water.

His 9 month check up isn't for another 2 weeks. We combined his 9 month and Jacob's 4 year visits since that would have put us in the office twice in 2 weeks. So I will update with his stats then.

 

And because Jacob wasn't up for a picture today here is an outtake

 

New Year

We had a very  low key new year this year. I bought Josh tickets to the Heart of Dallas Bowl, which our alma mater was playing in, for Christmas. The game was on New Year's Day so we stayed in since we would be leaving early in the morning for the game. The boys hung out at home with Grammy while we headed to the game. The game was so great! We met at a bowl game in New Orleans 10 years ago and North Texas hasn't been to a bowl game in 9 years. So it was so cool to get to go to this one for so many reasons. After a slow start though, North Texas pulled off a win! So exciting!

We had such a wonderful year last year. We were so blessed, with a wonderful 3 year old, our amazing new addition, great jobs, and lots of fabulous friends. This year brings some decisions to be made and possible changes in our life. Hopefully we will find that we will be as blessed this year in our new adventures as we were last year.

Great Article

I came across this article and thought it was very well written and captures our feelings about having all boys. (We assume if we have another it will be a boy since we make pretty awesome and adorable boys!)

http://www.whattoexpect.com/wom/pregnancy/the-wrong-reason-to-try-for-a-fourth-baby.aspx