9 Months!

Little stinker would absolutely not let me take a picture of him. I finally put the sticker on his bum, it seemed appropriate. He was always crawling away from me. He thought he was SOOOO funny too. 

This month really has caught me off gaurd a little. I don't know why, I love 9 months, cause they change in fun ways.  I knew he'd be mobile soon, but he seems so big all of a sudden. Crawling isn't good enough for him. He wants to be standing and opening things, and climbing. It all goes so fast from here on out. Throws me off that my baby is so big. :(

*He LOVES to drink from any kind of water bottle, or straw he can get his hands on. 

*He is a huge Momma's boy. There are times he does want Daddy and is content to hang with him, but most times he just wants his mom. It's a nice thing most days. 

*He loves to hold your hands and walk.

*He has been sick this whole month with yet another ear infection. No surprise that he's sick again huh? We've been battling it again with different meds. He'll still have one for Hawaii, but not much we can do about it. He has been on the meds enough that hopefully it's mostly cleared as we go.  

*He has pretty much been teething all month. He teeths just like Ollie did. Ah! His teeth do go up and down in his gums. It's obnoxiously weird. We kept waiting and waiting for this bottom tooth to break through and it just never would. Finally it did yesterday. So yeah he has one tooth just coming in. 

*He loves outside and wants to put everything non edible in his mouth when we go out there. 

*He's kinda a picky eater. It's hard to guess what we can get him to want to eat. Something he didn't want yesterday, he'll eat the next day. He LOVES graham crackers. He isn't' a fan of eggs, avocado, or cheese. He does like chicken and breads though. Most veggies we try he just chokes on, but he does like broccoli. He doesn't love fruit either, but will down a fruit smoothie if he sees it. He knows what it is. 

*He is now in the ducky for baths, and thinks it's great fun. He loves it when we let him in the bath with his siblings. His overall favorite though, has got to be the shower. With him being sick and congested we have taken him into the shower with us lots lately. So now if one of us is in the shower he crawls over to the edge, pulls himself up and like whines until you bring him in. It's funny. Then he's so happy to splash and cuddle when in there. 

*Trying to pull himself up here

*He does this thing where he chews on his tongue. It's not my favorite, cause I never know if he has anything in his mouth that he shouldn't. Stinker. He has had many things in his mouth that I don't love. 

*He does this one arm up happy greeting. He thinks it's fun to throw his arm/arms up and just squeal. 

*Still loves balls and playing with the couch pillows. 

*He is pulling himself up on everything. He has balanced not hanging on a few times, but isn't consistent with it. 

*He crawls to Adam all excited when he comes home from work. He gets mad if Adam doesn't hold him right away.
*He did get a "haircut" this month. I don't know that I'd consider it his first one cause we just buzzed the front a little. It was getting long and scraggly. So I didn't take pictures but his hair does look loads better.

* Milo now hates to have his diaper changed. He cries and squirms and tries to wiggle free. Gotta love that stage.
 

Operation Hawaii

Well here we are, just a few days from our trip. I started this better- my- body journey the very end of September. My biggest goal was to just stop feeling so self-conscious. Trying to get rid of baby weight, then pre-baby weight that shouldn't have been there. That was stuck there for a looonng time. It's been a roller coaster. I've lost weight, gained weight, slacked off, worked my butt off, been too sick too work out, ate way too many holiday sweets, etc. I've made an effort to change my eating habits. I didn't want to diet or count calories. I wanted to change my lifestyle for the better. It was much needed. I stopped drinking soda, I have an occasional one. I try to save sweets for the weekends, and generally just try to keep them out of the house when possible. I've eaten more salads than I ever thought I would. :) My meal portion size has been a huge change too. Here's the big question? Did I make my weight lose goal? No, I've still got a little over ten pounds to reach it. Ah well. I did pretty well. I lost all my baby weight, and those 22 pounds that were still hanging on of the remainder baby weight. I wish they would have just "fallen off", I worked my butt of too get rid of those stinkin things. Then I started working on loosing the pre-baby weight. This I should have done forever ago and wish I would have. 25 pounds of that gone and out of the way. Wahoo! I lost a little more than 11 inches around my body in different parts. I think the greatest thing is how much better I feel. I have so much more energy and it's super nice. I'd like to never reach some of those numbers in my weight ever again if I can help it. My goal is to get to where I'd like to be by summer. Normally I wouldn't post stats, but I started operation Hawaii with the intention to report at the end of it. I won't post the before and after pics though. :0) Adam and I were talking about how nice it'll be in Hawaii not being as self-conscious as we could have been had we not worked out. We both still have goals to reach and have some fantastic flab, but we look a lot better than we could have and we're ready for Hawaii. So grateful for this trip to motivate me. :) Bring it on. Can't wait to post about all the fun!

Happy St Patty's Day

Our Leprechaun trap

It looked promising....

He even snuck into out bathroom to use the potty. 

Gabe was afraid to use it cause of the green. :)

Gabe had a blast finding everything crazy and checking our trap, and pinching pinching pinching. 

I made sure I let the kids know that they are super hard to catch, cause they are too smart and sneaky. He tricked us. We thought we had him. He left a note saying he was too fast for us, but liked our shiny trap. He left us fake gold and a rainbow instead, stating we'd never get his real gold. He also left our front room in a silly mess, which I forgot to take a picture of before we cleaned it. 

 Our green breakfast. Daddy even got some to look like shamrocks. 

She is now a fan of silly Leprachauns. We made some yesterday that she's been playing with all day. This really is one of her favorite holidays. It makes it fun. 

 
 
 
 I love how she randomly threw up a peace sign in this picture

 Ollie has this thing with being silly and sticking out his tongue for pictures right now. 

 These are his Irish suspenders. I love them, and glad he was a sport about wearing them. I got them forever ago, and still love to throw them on the kids for this holiday. Cute boy. We have some with shamrocks too, but Gabe didn't want to wear pants today.

 

She loved the wig, and was so funny posing in it. 

 I had to make this one big, cause they all look stinkin cute in it.

Grandpa and Grandma Visit

Grandpa Weiss had a training in St George for his work this week. So when his training was done, before Grandma could some down he spent two nights with us. It was nice to have him. The kids loved  playing with him, and he was a good sport about their relentless requests for more games.  He also took the kids on a walk without me to go and play. He went golfing twice with Adam as well. 

Showing him Gabe riding her bike like a big girl. Milo was liking cuddling him.

The kids slept on our floor. Usually we don't put anyone near Gabe cause she's all over. We were surprised to find Ollie all over. 

Movie night

Grandpa playing Super Grandpa

Flying away after rescuing the kids. He introduced the concept of them being rescued, instead of them being the super heroes. They liked the switch up. 

Playing Old Maid

 On Friday Grandma and Uncle Richie came down and we got to see them Saturday for a bit. The kids loved playing with them, as always. 

It was a nice quick visit. My kids don't get to see them too often, and never one on one. So it's fun to see them all enjoy themselves.