Our week in pictures: 2/5 - 2/11

Tuesday, February 5: Pretty tulips from my Husby

Wednesday, February 6: I feel like it has snowed every day this week!

Thursday, February 7: 9 month well visit for our little man!

Friday, February 8: My snow angel

Saturday, February 9: The best part of his Valentine's present from Grandma and Papa, tissue paper!

Sunday, February 10: A yummy Sunday dinner by Michael!

Monday, February 11: New bogg beach/pool tote, can't wait to use it on vacation and for pool days this Summer!

Ethan's World: 9 Months

9 months mister, next month you will be in double digits! You have changed so much in your 8th month. Your personality is just bursting through, it's like you went from baby to acting like a toddler in a matter of weeks. You are turning into such a ham and you realize when you do things, you get a reaction out of people! You have definitely found your voice and are constantly babbling and you scream with joy. You also do this crazy scream lately where you suck in your breath and it sounds like you're choking. It scared the heck out of Daddy and me when you started doing it, but apparently it is pretty common with this age. Your first confirmed words happened this month with "ah boo," which is what I say to you when we play peek-a-boo. It's the first words that we've said to you that you will repeat back to us. You say "oh" a lot too, but I'm not sure you have any idea what it means, it's just an easy sound for you to say.

You still aren't fully crawling yet, but you are so close. You can get on all fours and go backwards and in circles, but you still haven't figured out how to move forward on your knees. You love standing and you surprised us by pulling yourself up last week. Your doctor seems to think that you are going to skip crawling altogether and will go straight to walking, we will just wait and see what happens. I'm guessing by next month's update you will be mobile and all over the place!

You are having an absolute ball playing with all of the fun things you got for Christmas. It's amazing how in 1 month's time you play with your toys in a totally different way than before. You are all about figuring out how things work and banging things together. Your favorites right now are your 2 ball pits, the bin of animals for your zoo, potsy, your standing music table, and your race track. You are so good playing independently too. When I need to make dinner or do something, you will happily play by yourself. I think we really lucked out with the separation anxiety phase. 

You have been healthy since last month which I am so grateful for. There has been flu going around like crazy and I'm hoping that we have dodged it. You got one new tooth this month. It was a rough one; your first two teeth didn't really bother you but this one was really painful. It kept you up for 3 nights and you were just moaning all night long. It was so sad. You were much better once it finally broke through. So now you have 3 bottom teeth, and the 4th is likely on it's way since you are chomping on everything like crazy. 

Little Man, you have the sweetest, most joyful and fun loving personality coming out of you at all times. You are just so much fun to be with and give Daddy and I the greatest joy. We look at you and our hearts burst, we love you so much. We are amazed by watching you grow, and we love thinking about what you will be doing next month and we can't wait to watch it all happen. 

Weight:

You weigh 22 pounds 5oz, the 83rd percentile. 

Height:

You are 32 inches long,our little giant!

Clothing Size:

You are wearing 12 months and 12-18. I think you will be in this size for a while, especially once you are mobile since you will thin out some.

Diapers:

You are wearing Pampers size 4.

Feeding:

Change is coming in this area. You are starting to push your bottles away more and more. A few times a week you only have 4 bottles or don't drink the whole thing, so I the transition to more food is coming soon. You still love your purees and we have you on a breakfast, lunch and dinner schedule with them. You have 1 packet at breakfast, 2 at lunch and 1 at dinner. We also give you some finger foods at every meal, yogurt melts are your favorite. You have gotten so good at feeding yourself and you are a pro with your sippy cup. Some of the real foods you've tried are: french toast, biscuits, pizza crust, broccoli, mashed potatoes, zucchini, white rice, macaroni and cheese, watermelon, red and green bell peppers, cheerios, black beans, yogurt and mushrooms.

Hair/Eyes:

Your hair is still golden blonde and grows extremely fast. You've had 6 hair cuts so far. Everyone who sees you still comments on your beautiful, sparkling blue eyes!

Sleep:

Sleep has been much better since you aren't sick anymore. We did have those 3 nights when your tooth was popping in that you did not sleep well, but overall you are on a very regular schedule and like sleeping. I continue to be thankful for this. You are doing great with taking 2 naps a day since we've dropped your short evening nap. You take a 2 hour nap in the morning and a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon. You wake up happy and ready to play. You poke your little head up when I walk into the room and always greet me with a smile.

Fun Stuff You Did This Month:

Ball Pits
Your 2 ball pits may be your favorite Christmas presents. You will sit in them for hours if we let you! You love having us shake it up so the balls fly all around you. You just squeal with delight!

Eating New Foods
You have tried so many new foods this month. Your favorite though seems to be anything with yogurt! You tried yogurt melts and had real yogurt too. You've also had cheerios, macaroni and cheese, and veggies from Benihana! We will continue to try more and more new foods and hopefully you will get some more teeth to help you chew better!

Pulling Up
You surprised the heck out of us last weekend by all of the sudden pulling up on your toy baskets. You've always like standing but you had never tried pulling up on anything before. Now you want to try and pull up on everything! As soon as I put my hands out to you, you grab my fingers and pull your whole body up and stand. It's amazing how quickly you've caught on. We keep waiting for you to start cruising along the furniture but you haven't taken that first step yet, we know it is coming!

Crib Mattress Moved Down
Since you started pulling up on everything we figured it was time to lower your mattress. You hadn't ever pulled up in there but, since you are so tall if you did pull up you would probably flip right over. It was time. I just can't believe how big my little boy is getting, he's no longer my little baby.

Your first year month-by-month

February Baby: Ethan plays Cupid

Our little cupid at 9 months! I have been dying to do this photo shoot for months since I got the wings and bow and arrow. He loved the bow and arrow just like I knew he would and of course it went right into his mouth! He took so many cute pictures this month it was hard to choose my favorite!

Weekend Recap

We had another great family-filled weekend. On Thursday we took Ethan for his 9 month check up at the doctor. He is growing perfectly and the doctor said he is doing great. I just can't believe he is already 9 months old. His next doctor's appoint will be for his year appointment! It's just crazy how time flies. He only had to get one shot this time which was a nice break and he got a Shrek band-aid to make it better. He had so much fun playing with the paper on the table again too!

On Friday we woke up to a bunch of fresh snow so we thought we would bring Ethan out for his first time in the snow. He wasn't a huge fan but he still made a cute snow angel!

While Michael worked Ethan and I hung out did some shopping and played with his toys. It's so nice that to see Daddy at work all we have to do is go downstairs!

Friday night we met up with Michael's parents and Grandma at the local Lion's club spaghetti dinner. His parents got a bunch of free tickets to attend so they invited us. Ethan wasn't a big fan of the spaghetti because he felt like he was choking but Daddy did give him a few spoons of lemon Italian ice and that was a big hit!

After the dinner we headed over to Rich and Tif's to hang out and let the kids play for a little while. 

On Saturday we got up, had some breakfast and just relaxed. When Ethan woke up from his morning nap we headed out to Schaumburg to run some errands. On the way we stopped and ordered Ethan's 1st birthday cake and smash cake from Deerfields! Party planning is in full swing and I was happy to have another thing checked off the list. After the bakery we headed to Whole Foods to do our grocery shopping and then we headed home. 

We made some lunch, Ethan took a nap and then when he woke up we got ready and headed out to Lombard to meet my parents. We went out early to do a little shopping and lone behold my parents showed up early to do the same thing! So we walked around the mall for an hour before our reservations. I picked up a couple new necklaces from Charming Charlie and I got Ethan a few cute things for vacation and Summer from Crazy 8. After shopping we went to dinner at Flattop. It was delicious as usual. My parents had a Valentine's present for Ethan and he had fun opening that, they got him some clothes to wear now and some cute things for Summer. I think his favorite part was the wrapping paper and tissue paper!

A funny thing happened while we were at dinner too. While we were sitting and eating my sister, Teddy and Lily walked in. We had no idea any of us would be there, it was pure coincidence. I guess great minds think alike! We couldn't visit too long because Ethan was getting antsy so we had to leave.

On Sunday morning we woke up and Michael made us breakfast and we just hung around the house. Before Ethan went down for his nap we moved his crib mattress down. Now that he is pulling up on everything, we knew it was time. He hasn't pulled up in there yet, but I was so worried that if he did he would flip right over the top because he's so tall. He didn't seem to mind the change and napped just fine. We'll see how long it takes him to figure out how to pull up in there!

The rest of the day we relaxed, did some laundry and some other things around the house. Michael cooked me dinner. He made lemon, pistachio cod from Whole Foods, corn on the cob, green beans, and mashed potatoes. It was really yummy!

I hope all of you had a great weekend as well!

My Snow Angel

We got blanketed with some fresh snow last night so we thought we would take Ethan out into the snow for the first time this morning. Let's just say he wishes he lived in Florida and not Chicago! He was not so happy with the snow. Hopefully next year he'll be able to see the fun in it!

Are you serious with putting me out in this stuff?

I don't want to be a snow angel!

And I'm done, let's try again next year!