8 months

Happy 8 month birthday, Evan. You're officially 2/3 of a year old! You've accomplished a lot in this past month. Here's what you've been up to:

- You've now eaten avocado, yellow squash (still your favorite), green beans, zucchini, pears, applesauce (not a big fan of it), sweet potato, and bananas. But of all the things you eat, I have to say mommy milk is still your ABSOLUTE FAVORITE!

- You would rather read and play with books than most of your toys. In fact, all of your toys. You also are still an excellent page turner!

- Mom, Dad, and Grandma have to follow your every move since you are crawling all over the house. You especially like to crawl towards the tile and Layne.

- Speaking of Layne, he maintains the ability to make you smile and laugh. There are times where you get SO excited, you can't control it and you throw yourself at us. It's adorable!

- You scratch everything mostly with your right hand and more specifically with your index, middle, and ring fingers. Mostly to feel new and old objects, but sometimes it ends up being our skin. In addition, you hit almost everything with your right hand. You also clasp your hands together when you sleep and you shake them when you're awake.

- I have a feeling your teeth will be coming out soon. Up until a few days ago, you would suck on our faces, arms, and shoulders (sometimes my knees) when you wanted to eat. Now, you bite. Hard.

- Your eyes are no longer blue. They now consist of blue/green color with yellow specks toward the center. I think you're going to have your Daddy's hazel eyes.

- Getting yourself to standing is next on your list of things to do. You've been pulling on your crib bumper (which has also cause you to hit your head on the crib bars a few times), you pull on your toy baskets and lift yourself onto your knees, and you try to pull up on anything you can get your hands on.

- You smile when we hold up a camera and say "Picture?"

- The past two days you have been content waking in your crib and playing with you Pooh bear and Comfort Cross. Let's keep that up!

American Baby

I've entered Evan into his very first contest! It's for American Baby magazine - ten winners will be selected for an all expense paid trip to New York, a photo shoot, and they will be featured in the magazine. One of the chosen winners will also be on the cover.

Check out Evan's photos!

The Office

I love this show and I can't wait for the baby!

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Daddy and Pacifier

There are so many wonderful things to celebrate about being married to a man who is an auditor. One of them is NOT this time of year -- it's busy season. Paul works very hard at what he does which causes him to have to work late nights and even some Saturdays. Most evenings, Evan is asleep by the time he gets home. It's always so nice when the two of them get to spend some good, quality daddy and baby time together. (It's even better when I get to take part!)

While playing with me yesterday morning, Evan found his "gently used" pacifiers that we put into one of his toy baskets. You see, Evan went through a phase of actually using a pacifier for about two months. Ever since then, he's hated them. Try to give him one and he makes a sour face or spits it out immediately. We have at least 5-6 of the Soothie pacifiers and 4 of the other type. Since he doesn't use them we stored them.

Well, after trying to eat the plastic bag they were in, I took one out to show Evan. He took it from my hands, and popped it into his mouth. He actually sucked on it for a minute or two before taking it out, playing with it, and then discarding it. Luckily, I was able to capture some of it...

I love this face!

Hmm...not so bad...

Picture?

Evan is a smart boy. All we have to do is say "Evan, want to take a picture?!" or "Picture?!" and we get this...

Oh, how I love this boy!

Catching up...

Where has the time gone?!

Well, I believe that I have failed to blog about Evan crawling. To start off, he began by moving backwards right when he turned 7 months. He would cruise all around the house - tail first.

My mom said she had been "working with him" on moving forwards over the past few days. Well, it paid off! Paul and I saw Evan crawl forwards for the first time yesterday morning! I was even able to catch a few steps on video.



He's still a bit awkward, but it gets him to the closest toy he desires. I've been trying to get him to move further by continuously moving the object away from him as he goes towards it. It's like watching a catch chase a toy mouse on a string. What a mean mommy I am!

Evan can now also sit up on his own! He goes from all fours to sitting and sitting to all fours. He can also go from sitting to falling really well! :)

He's still working on eating solids. He LOVES yellow squash. Who would have guessed? It seems as though he likes to "eat" every few days, and then on the in-between days he barely will eat a teaspoon's worth. I'm ok with it, I'd rather have him drink mommy milk anyway. He'll have plenty of time with solid food the rest of his life.

The other day Paul asked me how long I planned to nurse Evan. To be honest, I hadn't thought about it at all. Since I work full time and am going to school one night a week, nursing time is really the only time we have to have just for the two of us. If he's not ready to give that up, then neither am I.

A sad start to the week

We arrived for our weekly staff meeting on Monday afternoon expecting a training on the new playground safety rules. However, we were met by our superintendent and assistant superintendent. They notified us that our current principal was being removed from his position and will now be the assistant principal at a middle school in the district. He has also been removed as principal for the new school due to open in August. He will be greatly missed....