Favorite Things Party

Through the past year or so I had seen the ideas of throwing a "favorite things" party floating around the great world wide web. I had been itching for an excuse to throw a party, and a Favorite Things party sounds like the perfect excuse to throw a party, have a girls night, and get cool stuff (kind of like Christmas :). And so, two of my friends and I threw a party, and it was a raving success. 

The basic idea is you bring 4 of something you love, and you leave with 4 things your friends love! There was lots of delicious treats, but also great things like cleaning supplies, and nail polishes. 

I also had people bring along their favorite pot luck item to eat. It was pretty funny the things we ended up eating. We had everything from doughnuts, to Italian sodas and a plum upside down cake (soo delicious). I didn't get tons of pictures, but here they are, in all their glory, haha!

And just for good measure, here is a picture of Calvin:

Nine Months

Our dear sweet boy is now nine months old. Big news! He has now been out of my womb one week longer than he was in it! (He was born when I was 38 1/2 weeks and he is now 39 weeks and 4 days old). Drum roll please........................ He STILL doesn't have any teeth. If you see a grown man walking around with no teeth in 30 years, it will probably be my son, so go ahead and say hi.

This child never stops moving, which makes taking his monthly pictures quite a chore. He doesn't crawl on his hands and knees, he still army crawls. Even though he is army crawling, he is speedy and loves to crawl up on things.  His favorite activity is to walk around, especially with his new walker; although, he still prefers walking around holding our fingers.

He is now down to 3 liquid feedings a day. When he wakes up at 6:30, once he wakes up from his afternoon nap (around 3), and then right before bed, around 7:30. Calvin thinks food is the greatest thing ever invented, and would eat all day long if I let him. His favorite breakfasts are eggs with salsa and avocado, or a green smoothie. I will usually have my green smoothie for a snack in the afternoon and he gets SOOO excited when he sees me fill up the blender. He also loves any sort of bread meal (pizza, pasta, sandwiches) and his favorite fruits are Cuties and blueberries. He really is just a great eater all around. He will eat anything (except baby food and bananas) if he can eat it without us feeding it to him, he does not enjoy things being fed to him on a spoon, he definitely prefers to self feed.

Calvin is still our little champion sleeper going down at 7:45, and we don't hear a peep from him till about 7 the next morning; although 4-5x a week he decides he wants to wake up and join his parents soon after we get up at 5:30. I am usually in the middle of my workout when he wakes up around 6:15, so he will talk to himself for another 15 minutes before I go get him.  He takes two naps, one in the morning and one in the afternoon both about an hour to an hour and half.

Right now his favorite things are watching us brush our teeth, his baby Contigo water bottle, drinking from straws, reading, jumping up the stairs, flipping the switch on the power strip next to our bed (which is awesome when I wake up to find my phone hasn't charged :), swings, water, going outside, the Children's Museum and finding food on the kitchen floor.



The two things on his daily to do list are to crawl over to his dirty laundry basket, flip it over and find his dirty Aden and Anais blankets. I only let him have his blankets when he is in his crib so he always gets so excited when he finds the dirty blankets in his basket, and then he gives me a cheesy grin of defiance. After that he likes to go into the living room and pull off all of our movies and CD's. Needless to say, he has gotten into his destructive phase.

We just love this little boy more and more each month!

Eight Months

Another month has gone by and our boy here just keeps growing and getting more and more handsome by the day. No doctors appointments this month, but he is still in his 3-6 month jeans, his 6-12 month onesies still fit great and his 12 month hats are too small, so I think that give us a general idea of his stats :). 

He is still a toothless wonder (although he currently has two bottom teeth that we can almost see, so it may just be another day or two of having a little gummy!), but can chew and chomp like no body's business. Eating, jumping, walking around with mine or Roberts hands, jumping up the stairs, and kicking a ball are his favorite recreational activities. He could walk around all day, but it gets old after about 5 minutes (for me, that is). After a few minutes of playing with his toys on the ground he will find me, speedily army crawl over to me and grab my fingers. Or if he is sitting on my lap he grabs holds of my fingers and stands up or slides off my lap. He is a mover! If I don't walk with him he has a ROYAL melt down until he can walk. The kid knows what he wants.

He loves bath time still. He can splash up a tsunami and is all smiles around water. He is very routine based and gets excited at the end of bath time because he knows right after he gets in his PJ's it's eating time! Right before he nurses or has a bottle from Robert he will start to smack his lips together and pant. He just started this and it's hilarious.

 He is loved by the ladies. Actually, it's just his friend Emmeline-who is a doll- and she always gives Calvin a hug when she sees him. But by the look on his face below, I think he already hit the Elementary age when girls have "cooties". He is still our champion sleeper- Robert usually puts him down between 7:30-8 and he sleeps till 7, sometimes 7:30 the next morning. He just dropped one of his liquidfeedings three days ago so he is down to just morning, mid-day and evening. He eats three full meals a day and loves every one of them.

He is a smiley little guy when he wants to be; when we are out and about he is usually just soaking everything in. People will try and get him to smile, but only a few strangers have succeeded in getting a smile out of him, especially at Costco when his focus is primarily on finding samples.

A few weeks ago we transitioned him into a convertible carseat which has been a game changer for the car. He was getting a little too big for his carseat and looked terribly uncomfortable. I also just felt like our steel framed convertible carseat was so much safer than our plastic infant seat. He is a fan! A baby gate is also in our near future as he seems to be very intrigued by our stairs now.....

Depending on the day we usually go for 1-2 walks because he is like his mom and gets a little bit stir crazy in the house. He LOVES being outside, especially the wind. He usually giggles when a breeze blows his hair everywhere. Milestone, he now can be in all 3 positions in the Bjorn! He loved being on Robert's back for our little walk.

He also learned how to get to the sitting up position on his own! One morning I heard him babbling and turned on the monitor to find him sitting up! It was an exciting day in this household.

We sure do love this kid!