California Trip

Oliver and I got back last week after spending 10 days in California visiting family, training dogs, and most importantly attending Binny's 80th birthday party! You can view that video again here. My mom took so many pictures that we didn't get any with her in them, but she is in this video:

Video clips from California

Opening a present from Grandma - a guitar shirt!

Ready for bed

Get me out of this car seat!

Visiting with Grandma Julie

Cuddling with Great Binny

And ready to take a nap with Great Grampy

Playing computer with Grandpa Bruce

Do I look silly?

Hangin' with Uncle Evan and Grandpa Gregg

Eating guacamole, one of my favorites!

Playing Uncle Tom's piano

On the potty

Dancing with Grandpa Mark

Even Daddy joined us for the afternoon!

8 Months!

Oliver is 8 months old today! We have had a busy month! He's been crawling for about four weeks now, which has changed everything. He's getting fast and he's really good at crawling to all the things he shouldn't play with, like the garbage can, Penny's water bowl, Nick's guitar and any type of cord on the ground. He is pulling up on anything and everything he can get his little hands on, which involves a few tumbles now and then. His favorite word to say is Babababa! And he still doesn't have any teeth. He enjoys eating, but breast milk continues to be his main source of nutrition. The elimination communication is going great! Our average diaper count is down to just 1-2 per day and in the last week he has started being dry at night about a third of the time!

Nick is on 2nd shift right now, which means he doesn't go in to work until 2pm. He was able to go with Oliver and I to story time today, and Oliver crawled away from us for the first time to check out some bigger kids! We also got Oliver his first library card and signed him up for the summer reading program.

I have a ton of video clips to put together as well as photos from our trip to CA, so stay tuned. . .

Going for a short hike in our neighborhood

Oliver's first hike in a backpack

Taking a potty break

Penny loves to go hiking too!

Oliver still has to taste EVERYTHING, including Daddy,

Daddy's ear,

and the kitchen cabinets.

He's been helping out more around the house

and even helps load the dishwasher!

He started taking baths in the big bathtub

Look at that hair!

Wearing Daddy's engineer hat

He loves to crawl

Binny's 80th Birthday Party!

Comic

Herding

While I'm out of town, Penny is staying with our friend Kim-Marie, whom she loves! Nick is busy working on rebuilding our front stairs and porch this weekend, so we decided it would be easier if she wasn't at home. One reason Penny loves Kim-Marie is that she takes Penny herding! Here's a video from yesterday's lesson, only her second day herding.

Famous Penny!

One of our friends spotted this brochure at a BECU (Boeing Employees Credit Union) location inside a grocery store near Seattle. The picture is almost three years old and I don't even remember submitting it!

Video: Crawling!

Here Oliver is crawling to get to the video camera! He's a little fussy because I kept moving him back so I could record it before he got to me.

First Trip to the Zoo!

We went to the zoo for the first time today and had so much fun! The weather was gorgeous to top things off! We didn't stay a long time because it took a while to get our memberships and the babies only last a few hours in between naps. We mostly hung out at the Zoonazium, which had places for the babies and toddlers to play. There's a video at the end.

Mommy and Oliver

Making music with Tessa!

I like the drum!

And the rattles!

Video:

Swagger Wagon

This could be our future :)

Quinoa

For my Mother's Day dinner, we had fresh halibut, asparagus, broccoli, and quinoa. It was delicious, but it will be a long time before I give quinoa to Oliver again. I've been vacuuming it up all over the house for the past three days!

Video: Clips of Oliver, Month 7

Happy Mother's Day and 7 Months!

We spent a wonderful day out in the gorgeous Seattle sunshine today! Nick made us gluten free blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Then we took a walk to the farmers market to pick up dinner and hiked down to the dog park for Penny. Now he's making fresh fish for dinner. Yum!

And our little man is 7 months old today! So many new developments this month! At his last check up about two weeks ago, he was 17 lbs, 1 oz, and 26 1/2 in long, putting him smack in the middle of the 50th percentile for height and weight. Here are a few things he can now do:

• Get himself into a sitting position by himself
• Stand alone for a few seconds
• Stand up while sitting on his potty without holding on to anyone or anything
• Cruise a little bit on furniture
• Pull himself to standing
• Crawled once!
• Take bites and chew his food
• Mimic Nick’s roaring

His favorite foods are roasted chicken, steak, apples and broccoli. His favorite activity is still playing guitar with daddy. We also canceled our diaper service last month as we’re only going through an average of three wet diapers per day, including over night. Here are some pictures and a video is coming soon!

playing with my airplane

hello

Roar!

look at the bubble on my chin!

learning to brush my gums

i'm soo cute

can you resist me?

Video: Fun with Oliver & Daddy!!

You'll have to watch to see what happens!!

Nick is home!

Nick got back Sunday afternoon after being gone for 15 days! Everyone was so happy to see him!

Penny was so happy to see him that she sat on his shoulders!

Gifts from daddy! A bit big this year, but hopefully they'll fit next summer.

sunglasses!

Video: More Food!

More Play Dates

Today we went to a French story time at Childish Things, a local children's store. They have story times in different languages each week, so we're going to try to go to Mandarin and Spanish as well. Tessa and her mom also joined us of course. Afterward we let the babies play around the store.

Yesterday we went the a music class at a different toy store. Oliver loved the guitar playing, and at the end of class he got to play on a ukulele and mandolin!

He's cruising! Oliver walked all the way around this toy on his own.

Having fun!

Finally it's my turn!

I can grab the strings

Lick them

And strum them!

PEPS update

Oliver and I had brunch with our PEPS group this morning. Now that our weekly meetings are over, we're just getting together once a month. Aside from Tessa, who we see often, we had not seen the other babies for a month and they've all grown so much. Here is a picture from today, with the babies ranging from 6 1/2 - 7 months. Below it is last months picture and lastly, the first picture, taken at 3 1/2-4 mo. Look how much they have grown!

5/1/10

3/31/10

1/27/10