Reading with Daddy

Brady decided to read with Daddy before bed the other night. 

Sharing a Bath

We finally decided it was time to have Brady and Noelle share a bath.  It makes bath time much easier on us, and they absolutely LOVE it.  Like hysterical laughing and playing the whole time.  We call it a win-win.

Messy Messy!

This is what happens when Mommy's home alone with both kids all day...

Sibling Love

When I was taking pictures of Noelle this morning, Brady was having a rough time listening to directions.  So I asked him to come sit on the big chair with Noelle to take pictures and that cheered him right up - he's such a ham for the camera nowadays.

LOVE THIS PICTURE. 

Uh... Brady, that's my foot you're sitting on

Trying to make a headfirst dive, once...

Twice...

 

 And here they both go... thereby cutting short the photo op before someone gets hurt ;)

9 months old today!

Lots of changes this month...

Let's start with new things Noelle can do.  She can go from laying to sitting and sitting to laying.  She stands with assistance for much longer periods and is much steadier.  She tries to pull to a stand but isn't quite there yet.  She also has just started what I guess I would call army crawling.  She basically drags her legs a bit forward to get to something in front of her.  She's not very good at this yet and she doesn't really try to crawl anywhere - she just does that when there's something in front of her that catches her interest.  She holds up her arms to be picked up and will reach for someone if she wants to be held.  Noelle can clap and also responds to her name.  She babbles and screeches a lot more - no new sounds that I can tell and I still haven't heard a mama in any context but she likes to be heard.

She got three new teeth this month - the top middle two and one right next to one of those teeth.  She's also about to get the fourth top tooth any day now.

Noelle still hates solid foods for the most part, although I guess I would say that for her, we've made decent progress.  She will eat puffs if they are put in her mouth.  I am also able to get 5-6 bites of pureed food, usually only fruit, in her at a sitting.  On a whim, I tried giving her mashed avocado on my finger and she seems to love it.  Like to the point where she opened her mouth for more and tried to put my finger back in her mouth.  This is huge for her given that she never opens her mouth for food.  I can always tell when she's done eating because she will immediately open her mouth and let everything slowly come out.  She literally refuses to swallow for 10-20 minutes.  It's super silly.

The sleep front still gets two thumbs down.  She's up 1-2 times a night (and it's usually two) and will only be calmed with nursing.  The only positive is that right after she eats she goes back to sleep so we are only up about 10 minutes.  We've tried to eliminate one of those feedings, but the combination of her not having her own bedroom and her sheer willpower and refusal to sleep for upwards of 1+ hours results in us always giving in.  She does take two naps a day - one is usually 1.5-2 hours and the other is 1-1.5 hours so we do enjoy that.  She also started spending the first half of the night in her crib in Brady's room and was doing really well with that until she got RSV a week ago.  Once her sleep is back to normal, we'll put her back in there. 

Brady's Antics

Brady got home from daycare one day last week and put on my winter hat.  He looked hilarious so I tried to take a picture but was too late.  He then insisted on putting on his own hat, then "showing" the camera his police car and school bus.  He even insisted on looking at the pictures afterward :)

Showing the camera his police car

Now the police car and school bus side by side 

And just one last shot as he ran off to play

So Close to Crawling

Noelle has been close to crawling for the last week or so... she gets on her hands and knees and rocks but somehow just ends up moving backwards and getting frustrated.

This is how it starts... on all fours

Then her legs slide out... which isn't totally her fault - we have hardwood floors and it's cold in the winter so she has a lot of things working against her getting this crawling thing down.

The motivation - a book.  

And somehow she ended up much further away than she wanted.  What the?!?!

Everett's First Birthday

We went to Wisconsin for Everett's first birthday party... almost a month ago.  Here are the pictures, albeit very delayed. 

Look at these handsome fellas :)

Seriously people, can we take this hat off already?!?!

Brady trying the cake... and the ice cream.  He didn't seem to be a fan of either.