Sophia is 9 months old!

On the 26th Sophia turned 9 months old, and we had her check up with the doctor. She is growing up way too fast. Her weight was 16lbs, 6oz, and height was 26.75in. I checked Dylan's calendar, and he was an inch and a half taller than her at this age! The doctor said she's growing right along her curve so she's healthy, and she expect that she'll pretty much have my body structure. So...she's probably gonna be short. Her crawling has evolved into some crazy zombie, one legged crawl, but it gets her around the house. She stands up when she gets to anything that will hold her up, and loves to crawl to the xbox to turn it on. She plays with Dylan in his room, and loves the tool bench. She was even brave enough to stand up without holding anything in his room, but no steps by herself yet.

When I first started writing this blog post (3 days ago!), Sophia had no teeth. However, as of last night, I felt the tiniest little sliver of a tooth at the bottom center of her mouth. Finally!! I'm sure she's not going to be too happy over the next few days as it makes it's way out, but at least the process is started! I was starting to get so worried that I even googled "is it possible for a baby to be born without any teeth". FYI, it is, but it's very rare. Now that she's getting teeth, I can start expanding the foods that she eats. She hasn't had pureed baby food in a few months, and it's really hard to find foods that are soft enough for her to eat on her own.  The good thing though is that she isn't a picky eater. She loves any and every thing that I give her. She loves it so much that she rubs it all over her face and hair. Ok, maybe that comes from her being a messy eater, but none the less, she loves food. 

It seems like she does something new every day. She says MAMAMAMAMA and BABABABABA, and she yells at Dylan when he takes toys away from her. She dances when music is on. She never wears shoes because her feet are too chunky to fit in them. I have only been able to fit shoes on her a handful of times. I keep trying different styles because if she's walking soon she needs shoes, but so far no luck.

She outgrew the moby wrap that I used to carry her when she was a newborn. I had been putting off buying a new baby carrier because I felt like I would be enabling her clingy behavior. But after borrowing a friend's carrier when we went to California Adventure, and realizing that even when I don't put her in a carrier she's still clingy, I decided to by a new one. Luckily I found a pretty good deal on a Baby Hawk, and it should be here in the next few days! It holds up to 45lbs, so I won't ever need a new one. Technically I could hold Dylan in it if he wasn't 2/3 my height. I promised Josh that for fun I would put him in it once and take a picture. 

Taking 9 month pictures of Sophia for her baby book was hard! She won't sit still at all. I still need a picture of her next to her build a bear, but here's what we got so far: 

We had to switch to this booster because she was tearing the other high chair apart. She had one of Dylan's old shirts over her, and still managed to get this dirty. Yes, those are peaches stuck to her face.

Game Face!!

Who taught you to pose like that?

On my last post I said Dylan had taken some self portraits with my camera. When I say some, I mean like 20. I was looking through them and laughing so hard because some of them look like they are straight from myspace. OMG. Where does this kid learn these things? From me? Jesus, I hope not. Here are some of my faves-

 Yesterday on his way to school he was telling me that a girl in his class cries because she misses her mom. Then he said "but I never miss you because I'm brave". Um....ok? You don't miss me at all? Not even a little?? ha ha, this kid cracks me up. 

Sophia is on the move, and it's actually helped her neediness a lot. Rather than wanting me to hold her all day, she's ok with crawling around and finding things to hold on to while she stands. She can cruise around the table, and will let go and stand by herself for a few seconds at a time. Josh thinks she'll be walking in the next month so we'll see! 

Sunday is the last day of this online class I am taking, so that should free up some time for me for at least 2 months. Mid-November my respiratory classes will start, so that's going to be another hectic time for us. I'm really excited that time is going by so fast because every day that passes is one day closer to Josh being home with us! And the countdown continues...

Busy? Me? Not at all...:)

Ok...so...I'm not very good at keeping the blog up to date. Things get ridiculously busy around here, and it's not uncommon for me to not even know what day it is. I'm not even sure where to start with all of the updates. First up...

DYLAN! He finished his second session of swim lessons. He is ready to move on to the next level, and I think we may start that on Saturday mornings. He also started karate a few weeks ago. He loves it! Right now it's just him and a karate teacher but he is going to start going to a class that has other students that he can interact with. He practices his moves at home, and when we FaceTime with Josh, he shows off his karate skills. Tomorrow is the start of his 3rd week of Preschool! On his first day, I held back the tears as I walked him in. He's gone to daycare since he was 1, but this was different. This was SCHOOL! He was wearing his little Bumblebee backpack, and he walked in like he owned the place. I can't believe how grown up he is already! He likes to say that things are disgusting (which he pronounces "us-gus-ting") and he just started saying that everything Sophia does is adorable. It sounds really cute, but he says it over and over allllll daaayyyy looonnngg. The attitude comes and goes, but I think I've cut him some slack on it ever since I had the realization that the attitude is my fault (I'll save that story for another day).

Here are some of his pictures from the past few weeks...

He finally got a haircut! I kept it long enough for the mohawk, but the sides are shaved again.

First day of Preschool!!

Walking into school. I told you...he thinks he owns the place.

Watching Dark Knight Rises, in his Batman shirt of course

Luigi!

This is their idea of bedtime 

Now for Sophia! 

She just turned 8 months old yesterday. Since my last update about her at 6 months, she started (army) crawling, pulling herself up, and she can stand for a few seconds without holding on to anything. This girl is all over the place. Despite her mobility, her favorite place to hang out is sitting on my hip. I keep telling myself that this is just a clingy phase, but she doesn't seem to be growing out of it at all. She thinks that everything that Dylan does is hilarious, which just encourages him to be loud and run around the house like a mental patient. She still has NO teeth! This doesn't stop her from eating everything though. I have to make sure anything I am eating is out of her reach because she will grab it and shove it in her mouth. Also, as of 2 days ago, she has been upgraded to a convertible carseat! I searched for the perfect seat for weeks, and when it finally came, it sat in my living room for over a week because I was too busy/tired/hot to go out there and install it. 

Here are her 8 month pictures, and some random ones taken over the past few weeks-

Doesn't she look so big in these pajamas? There's a huge difference between wearing the infant sleepers and these 2 piece pj's!

When I was taking pictures of Sophia yesterday, I took some with my camera and Dylan ended up taking over the camera. I thought that he was taking pictures of Sophia, and there were a few, but the majority of the pictures were of him! They are hilarious! I'm going to upload them tonight or tomorrow so I'll be sure to put them on the blog! :)

Can I squeeze in here?

I woke up, went in the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot, and came back to the room. Um...this is a king size bed. Guess I'll go lay on the couch. 

Our Anniversary!

I know I usually only post about the kids, but today I'm gonna talk about me and Josh.  Today is our 7th wedding anniversary! Pretty crazy, right?! On our wedding day we were only 20 years old, living in our first apartment, and everything was planned within 3 weeks. So much has happened in the past 7 years. Just like every relationship, we've had so many beautiful memories, and some not so shining moments. I'm not gonna lie, sometimes marriage is hard. We've been together since we were 17, and a person grows tremendously between 17 and 27. There was a point in time that I wasn't even sure we'd make it. Instead of saying it was too hard, and giving up like so many couples do, we worked on it. Now I can honestly say that we have an amazing relationship and it gets better everyday. I love him so much and I can't picture my life without him. It's tough being away from him (especially on special days like this), but he's worth waiting for. He means the world to me, and I'd marry him all over again in a second. I came across this quote a while ago: 

"the couples that are 

"meant to be" 

are the ones that go through 

everything that is meant to 

tear them apart and 

come out even stronger

than they were before."

I can't think of words that describe us any better than that. We aren't a perfect couple by any means, but we are perfect for each other. Happy Anniversary love!

Our first minutes as a married couple: 

The most recent picture I can find of us: 

Quick Updates!

I know it's been a while since I blogged. Things are busy around here! Maybe I was a little too ambitious thinking I'd be able to blog every day.  Dylan just finished his first session of swim lessons. He's going to stay in this same class for another 2 weeks because he needs to get more comfortable with keeping his face in the water, and he needs to work on listening (no surprise there!). Sophia continues to try to crawl. She scoots herself backwards, and in a circle, but I've only seen her bring herself to her knees a few times. And when she does, she puts her face down and licks the tile. 


Dylan got a really cute batman shirt! As long as he can contain his little attitude, we are going to see the Dark Knight in a week or so.

 AND we are starting to bring back the mohawk! I'm going to let it get a little longer before I make a decision about shaving the sides. 

Later that day, batman needed a nap. 

While Dylan slept, Sophia and I kept busy. I used the front camera on my iPhone and let her look at herself while I recorded it. The result was hilarious. Watch the video below!

A trip to the Phoenix Children's Museum

I thought I posted these last week, but I guess not! These are pictures from our trip to the Phoenix Children's Museum 2 weeks ago. 

Gratitude and Trust

As parents, Josh and I want to give the kids every opportunity we can. Above all else, we want them to be happy. We are always looking for fun things for Dylan to experience, places to take him, and we let him participate in things that we think he will enjoy. We always joke that he's been to more Cardinal games and goes to the movies more often than 75% of the people we know. I hate using the word "spoiled" because it's so negative. To me, when you start expecting things like that instead of appreciating them, that is when you become spoiled. I don't have a problem with spending the time/money on things that he likes or wants as long as he is grateful for them. So here's the dilemma. Lately Dylan has been getting an attitude and sounding really unappreciative. Just a few examples: I got him some stuff he likes at the grocery store and he said "um, is this ALL?, well I'm not going to eat this jello because after dinner I won't be starving." And when I asked him if he had fun at the 4th of July celebration he said "no, fireworks are boring". After that comment I decided we needed to have a long talk about being grateful. I told him if that's how he felt then we don't need to go anywhere anymore. He can be bored at home. Especially with Josh gone, it takes a lot of effort to get him and Sophia ready and out of the house to go to t-ball, swimming, movies, shopping, or even just a trip to play with other kids. This isn't the first time I've mentioned this stuff to him, but this time I had to figure out how to really make it click in his head. The idea seems easy, but explaining concepts like gratitude, appreciation, truth, and trust to a child is pretty tricky. He would get that being ungrateful was bad but he wasn't comprehending much more than that. Finally as we continued the conversation he said "being grateful means I have a lot of toys and there are kids that don't have toys, so I should like my toys." Yes! He's getting it! Obviously it goes beyond toys, but he grasps the basic concept and that's all I wanted for now. To build off of that, he went through all of his toys and decided that he could afford to give some toys to the kids that have none. I was so proud of him. We've also had conversations about being honest, and how if you want to be trusted you shouldn't tell lies. I try to keep it pretty light but he knows this is important stuff. Last week he wanted to help me clean, so he started wiping off the island with a washcloth. I looked over and he was smacking the washcloth against the wall. I asked what he was doing and he said that was what you had to do to make it clean. I told him I wasn't sure about that. He stopped what he was doing, looked at me and said "well I hope you trust me". Yup, I do buddy, and you are doing a really good job.

I know this isn't the end of these conversations, but I have hope that he won't grow up to be a spoiled kid that has no idea how great his life is. I refuse to have a tiny boy version of Veruca Salt in my house. I'm so glad I didn't have to take it to the extreme and start cancelling everything we have planned. If I did that, we wouldn't have cute pictures like this: 

Learning new things everyday

Dylan asked to wear his Under Armour shoes to school today. Normally I have him wear his Vans because

1. His Under Armour shoes are white, and he isn't exactly known for being clean and

2. He can't tie his shoes, and the Vans just slip on. 

Rather than start an argument (that I would probably lose) at 8am, I agreed to let him wear the ones he wanted. 

I picked him up from school, and on the way home he told me his friend KJ taught him how to tie his shoes. He said he was really good at it, and when we got out of the car he would show me so that I would know how to do it too. We pull into the garage, and this is what he shows me....

 

I couldn't help but smile when I saw his shoes as I imagined two 4 year olds sitting on the playground figuring out how to keep his shoes from coming untied. Very creative. I didn't want to break it to him that it wasn't the way his shoes are tied (I guess technically he can tie them however he feels like it). I told him that there are a lot of ways to tie shoes, and I would show him how I tie them. That way he can be awesome at all the different ways to tie shoes. His response? "Well yeah because I'm 4 years old." 

On a side note, he also started swim lessons on Monday. He's signed up for 4 weeks, Mon-Thurs. At that point we'll see if he wants to keep going. I just want him to be comfortable without floatation devices in the pool. I'm not expecting an olympic swimmer, but with Dylan, we may just get something crazy like that. 

Learning how to float

Who has an iPod?

Ah technology! I love it. I know it wasn't that long ago, but sometimes I wonder how in the world we all got through the day without cell phones. What if there was an emergency and you were driving, how would someone get ahold of you? How did you call the police if you were in a car accident? I can only imagine the fun shiny stuff we'll have by the time Dylan and Sophia are adults. 

Recently Josh and I broke up with BlackBerry. We had been wanting iPhones for a while, and with Josh's deployment, the iPhone has so many more advantages. Since I can listen to my music on my iPhone, I didn't really have any use for my iPod anymore. It wasn't too long ago that I left my iPod on the table, and Dylan grabbed it and started listening to the music while he danced around the house. It was hilarious. So I told him that once I got my new phone, he could have the iPod. 

Fast forward to last week. I was cleaning the backyard, and found that a few unnamed siblings had left my iPod out there. (If you are in shock that I was outside cleaning the backyard, let me tell you it was not fun...or pretty.) I had never officially given the iPod to Dylan because I hadn't seen it in a while. So when we came inside I told him that the iPod was his now, but I still had to charge it because it was dead. Despite that, he carried it around all night. He asked if he could lay next to the iPod on the couch, and then he fell asleep. I left the iPod on the table, and carried him to his room. Around 3am, he came in my room crying and he came next to me and said "mommy?" in the saddest little voice ever. Usually he just climbs in the bed and falls back asleep. I asked him what was wrong (thinking maybe he had a bad dream, was missing josh, or something like that), and he said "I can't find my iPod!". Then he proceeded to cry harder. I got out of bed, grabbed the iPod off the table and handed it to him. He held it as he slept, and still had it in his hand as he walked out of the room in the morning. What kind of craziness did I just start? 

Of course he refused to talk about anything other than the iPod until I charged it. I also made a separate playlist of songs that he can listen to. The last thing we need is him walking around the house singing "move b*%&! get out the way!". No one has to tell me that it is crazy that a 4 year old has an iPod. I know it is!! That was my first iPod and Josh bought it for me when I was pregnant with Dylan. But what can I say? It was just going to sit in a drawer and not get used anyways. And he is really cute when you catch him singing the songs. 

Sophia's Half Birthday!

Ok, so technically her half birthday was 2 days ago. I was way too sleep deprived to blog until today. So here it goes! 

Sophia is 6 months old! Lots of drooling, biting, and hands in the mouth, but still no teeth! She's slowly getting used to the idea that I can't hold her all day. She'll sit on the couch and play, scoot around on the play mat, or hang out in the exersaucer for short periods of time throughout the day. The only time she will sit quietly in the swing is if I put her in there within the first hour of her waking up. Maybe she'll still too tired to fight it at that point, but any other time of the day, she arches her back so I can't even buckle her in. She sits really well by herself, but I always put the boppy behind her so she doesn't smack her head on the ground when she throws herself back.

 Tuesday she went to her 6 month well baby check up. She weighs 14lbs, 14 oz and is 25.25 in long. I was actually expecting her to be a lot bigger. The doctor says she looks great, and is right on track for her growth. She had to get 3 shots, and she started crying as soon as I laid her on the table. 

Out of curiosity, I pulled out Dylan's calendar that has all of his check up info and milestones to see where he was at 6 months. At his 6 month appointment, he was 14lbs and 26.25in. I was surprised because Sophia seems a lot chunkier than I ever remember Dylan being. Maybe since he was an inch longer, his weight was a little more stretched out. I flipped ahead to his 7 month and saw that within the 2 weeks after he turned 7 months he got his first 2 teeth, started crawling, moved from his belly to sitting up by himself, and pulled himself up to standing using his toy chest. OMG! I can only imagine Dylan running around the house (screaming like the Hulk), and Sophia crawling after him trying to keep up. To think that may be reality in a month or so is scary! 

The next day (Wed), Sophia woke up with a fever, and a red bump on her leg from her shots. She wanted me to hold her, but she would cry if my hand even brushed up against the bump. After a very fussy day and a lot of protesting from Dylan, we all went to bed early. I expected Dylan to put up a fight about going to bed early, but some of the things he says are ridiculous. He went to his room, and yelled "fine! I'm just going to be late for everything! I'm going to be late for the circus and for swim lessons!" I told him not to worry about being late because with his attitude he isn't going to the circus or swim lessons. He ran out crying saying he wanted to go, then finally agreed to lay down. 

Sorry I got a little sidetracked by Dylan's craziness. Anywho, here are Sophia's 6 month pictures.

And then the paparazzi goes too far...

 

 6 more months until her 1st birthday! This is also a reminder that there are only 6 months until Christmas. :) In case you were wondering, YES, I have started thinking about her 1st birthday party!!! Who am I kidding, I started thinking about it months ago. I may or may not already have 2 presents in my closet for her. I'm not 100% set on anything yet, but I really like the theme Sophia in One-derland (like Alice in Wonderland). I'll keep ya posted!