Nine Months!

Let's take a moment to cheer as we ring in the new year. Because as soon as that clock struck twelve, Carson was finally a fully insured little boy again! I made him a doctor's appointment first thing on January 2nd, so we finally got some stats on our little man!

 Here's what our 9-month old did this month:

• Stood without holding onto anything for several seconds a handful of times.
• Decided he hates baby food one day and now completely refuses to eat it.
• Loooooves to climb the stairs...consequently...fell down a few stairs twice this month. :(  It was even while I was standing right by him both times, but he still took the plunge. No harm done though. He's a graceful faller.
• Buckled down on sleep training. We started consistently doing a bedtime routine. I got him a new "comfort blanket" like I did with Eli. We had him used to his sound machine. Then the crying began. There were several nights of shushing and drowsy singing, but we finally got him to sleep all the way through the night a couple of times!! That's huge improvement, and I feel like a new woman with a full night's rest! Fingers crossed he keeps it up.
• He usually takes two naps a day, but a few days he only took one afternoon nap and did totally fine. 
• He loves bananas, cheese, blueberries, pancakes and macaroni and cheese.
• He hates Cheerios, applesauce and raisins. 
• He copies what we say on certain words! I know it sounds nuts but it sounds like he says, "All done" every time after we say it to him. He also seems to repeat "Eli," "Uh-oh," and "Ni, ni" for night, night. He regularly says "mama" and "dada" though I'm not sure he connects that he's saying our names. I wouldn't believe it if I didn't hear it for myself, but I swear the boy is already trying to talk.
• To go along with the above bullet, I started trying to teach him sign language and he looked at me like I was a moron, then he would mimic the words I was saying. It always gets a laugh out of me and Jeff.
• Wears 9-12 month clothes and size 3 diapers.
• Waves at people when they say "hi," waves a different wave for goodnight, and can clap his hands.
• Dances like you wouldn't believe. Pump some tunes and he goes wild.
• His favorite toys are cars, the dishwasher, and anything that makes noise.
• He's a goof and we all love the little guy!

 We're seeing more of this lately! Yipee.

 New comfort blanket that helped big time with sleep training.

 Insists on feeding himself. Still hasn't learned he can't digest food through his eyes.

Happy nine months Carson! You're growing up too fast.

How My Phone Sees It

I have a smorgasbord of pictures from my phone to share with you. True to phone photo dumps, these pictures are unrelated and not always the best quality. But I trust that you can deal with that.

This happened between Christmas and New Year:

More to come on that later (if we ever finish all my projects).

Gah. This picture makes me want to die. For two weeks I had what Jeff called, "Dangling Participles." A.k.a. my children. We were all sick and crabby and the kids were whining constantly, needing to be held nonstop and making faces like this at me all day long:

Luckily sickness has passed and my "participles" aren't quite as clingy.

Jeff's putting that new papa bear chair to work. Love this.

My mom bonded with Carson over Christmas break. She was always eager to hold him while he slurped down a bottle, though nobody wanted the spit-up king after he finished.

And you really don't want Mr. Spit-up right after he's been fed and spun around in circles several times. This may be his favorite thing, and I may have almost dropped him trying to capture that happy face on camera.

Here's another happy face! Eli's great at giving cheesy, fake smiles when I encourage him to look at the camera. I'll take it.

The lineup. Eli's loving all his new matchbox cars. (So am I!)

Trying to come up with ways to entertain the kids while we're cooped up all day avoiding the snow.

Yes, we're sitting on the floor in the kitchen. No, I don't remember why.

Carson had his Blue Steel face on.

Carson discovered our washing machine this month! He was hypnotized.

Eli still loves watching the clothes spin, too.

I think Eli and Carson look completely different, but everybody always tells me they look like twins. These next two pictures have me thinking everybody might be right. Behold the Excell cheese ball smile at its finest:

And finally, Eli "reading me the recipe" to sugar cookies (with a sneak peek of our new blue wall! Eeek).

(There's another new post below!)

Dreaming of Summer

Remember last year how I went on a walk almost every day from November - March which led me right back into the beautiful spring weather? Remember how Jeff longed to shovel snow for the first time at his very own house, but the weather never provided that opportunity for him? Remember how I was loving the idea of global warming if it meant I didn't have to deal with snow for the rest of my life?

Global warming is a lie. A big. Fat. Lie.

No walks for us this winter. Or maybe ever again.

Because it will probably take two years for the two feet of snow that plopped onto our neighborhood to melt. The snow plows conveniently decided to call our neighborhood a lost cause and barely even bothered to plow. I don't even dare venture to go outside for the mail anymore. I have come to learn about myself that I completely hate the snow. Other than to look at, but I really only like looking at it on Christmas day. Other than that it should go ahead and melt and turn into spring.

Even though I've tried to convince Eli the snow is horrible and awful, he still found joy in our winter wonderland.

And let's face it, I'll have to give the snow a big, "Thank you!" for setting this scene for an adorable wintery photo shoot of my snow bunny.

Rosy cheeks. Always in the winter.

Jeff got his fill of shoveling. Four times in one day.

Trying to be artsy on Instagram:

As if the ever present snow wasn't enough motivation to stay inside, the icicle/death traps all along our roof have secured my spot next to the fireplace for the next four months.

Snow. Snow. Snow. If you weren't so pretty I would hate you even more than I already do.

Can someone bring me a hot chocolate? Thanks.

Jedi Toddler

I just wanted to post a follow up of Sarah's last post.  Here is a video showing Eli's improvements as a Jedi.  Enjoy!

Funny Moments of 2012. On Video.

How was I able to keep these video clips from the blog for so long?!? I found a bunch of (what I consider) hilarious clips of my children over the last year. Please enjoy our 2012 montage of almost forgotten funny moments.

Life Savers...Literally

We got Eli Life Savers for Christmas. All week he has had the hardest time saying "Life Saver." He started by calling them "Light Sabers," and he's morphed the name of the candy each time he tries to say it. Then this happened:

Eli: "MAMA! I want the Save Neighbors Candy."
Me: "Save Neighbors Candy?!?"
Eli: "It saves neighbors when I suck on it."

Where did this kid come from?