Project Life 365 - Week 1-4

 I am attempting to complete Project Life 365 and so far so good! I started on January 1st and have taken a picture every day; I'm just a little behind in scrapping them.

Here are the first 4 weeks...a bit behind, but at least documented!

{11 Month Pictures}

 And here are this month's pictures. Once again, harder and harder to get him to sit still!! I guess you'll be able to figure that out once you see the toys in the pictures. Still cute I think!

{Watch Me Grow} 11 Months

I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about this month's post. 11 months means my baby is not going to be a baby for very long but on the other hand I'm ready for a lot of the "baby" stage things to be done and over!

Milestones:

This little guy is busy growing and changing so much each day. He seems to be picking up on new things all the time. He started the month off by standing and cruising around furniture with some uneasiness. Now he flies around the furniture. He seems a little too scared to let go too much yet though.

And then once he had the furniture cruisin' skill mastered he moved on to bigger and better things - like pushing Mr. Roaring Lion around. He especially likes it if he's turned on so the lion roars and sings a song while he's cruising around. As soon as he gets to the end of his straight line; usually he's run into a wall or piece of furniture, then he'll walk around the lion, push his nose again (maybe once, maybe 10 times) and then either push the lion backwards back to where he came from or we'll try to turn the lion for him...which he isn't much of a fan.  It is so funny to watch him walk behind the lion because he looks so bow legged when he's walking.  Either way, it's so cute to watch him figure out what he is going to do! Problem solving already!!

And then there are the teeth. He is now the proud owner of 5 teeth with a 6th one pushing through any day. Now if he would just figure out how to use these new chompers he possesses!

Language:

No real words quite yet, but LOTS of "dadadaddadadad" and constant jabbering in his own tongue. He sure lets us know when he isn't happy and he doesn't even have to use his real words yet.

Eating:

Still great at baby food, but not a big fan of finger foods. He seems scared of whatever I give him as if it's poison. He LOVES the Gerber cheese puffs but refuses to eat the little puffs and not the biggest fan of the wagon wheels. I sure hope he changes his mind on the puffs because I stocked up when I had a bunch of coupons! ha! When he does put something in his mouth, he's not quite sure what to do with it. He doesn't act like he knows to chew. I guess he's still used to baby food and being able to pretty much just swallow. So he'll get a little piece of his solid food on the back of his tongue and act like he's gagging. Yes, quite the ordeal especially when we are out to eat! Oh child, just figure it out please!! And I know I'll probably regret saying to hurry up and figure it out because I'm sure in a few years he'll be eating me out of house and home!

Sleeping:

We are having more and more sleep through the night nights, but those darn teeth were rough on him. I feel like I was giving him motrin or tylenol every night for about 2 weeks straight and as soon as it wore off he would wake up. Almost like an alarm clock. I felt bad giving it to him so often, but he clearly needed it.

Travel/Events:

We had a pretty busy month with Christmas falling during this month. After a couple Christmas' he had the opening figured out!

Santa came to our house and brought him an activity cube!

And he also brought him a xylophone! The mallet's pretty good to chew on too. Multipurpose xylophone! ha!

And then after we celebrated Christmas at our house, we went to Jackson and celebrated with Grammie and Pops, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Jeff, Sadie and David. We had a great several days and can't wait for the boys to be a little older and be able to play with each other (or should I say get in trouble together :) )

Will playing with David's bouncer toys and trying to show him the ropes of crawling and pulling up to things. He wants him to hurry up and get these things mastered so they can go off on some adventures together.

And Will also got to experience his first snow! It will be so much more fun when he can actually walk and not have to just sit in a pile. But, he was actually ok with it, even with it being pretty cold outside as well.

Sitting on Daddy's Sled that he used when he was a kid.

And then there was present time at Grammie and Pops. And Will LOVED the wrapping paper and even tried to open other people's gifts if we weren't watching close enough.

Where's Will?!

One of Will's buddy's celebrated his 1st birthday so we had to get an updated picture of the little ones all lined up.

L-R David H 14 Months, David B 12 months (birthday Boy), Will 11 months, Mason 8 months

Then we headed to St. Louis for a day and went to the Magic House with Aunt Rachel and the kids. This is about the most activity that Will did the entire time we were there. He was a good boy and sat contently in his stroller!

I  just love his hair!!

Favorite Toys/Books:

I don't think he has a favorite favorite toy really. He likes his new car ramps he got for Christmas as well as the Little People school bus. He especially likes the toys that play music and will shake his head back and forth when it's playing. He's got the rhythm!

 And of course he LOVES LOVES LOVES any of Katelyn's toys and to get in her things and maybe just mess them all up when she's trying to play!

Playing with Katelyn's Ken Barbie Doll. At least he picked up the boy barbie.

Misc:

He LOVES bath time and will stay in there forever. If he's especially cranky in the evening, we do bath and he usually cheers up and we are able to buy about 30-45 minutes of happy time!

Laundry is pretty exciting as well. He was watching the dryer go around as well as seeing his reflection in the door.

Weekly Pictures:

January 4, 2013 - 45 Weeks

January 11, 2013 - 47 Weeks

January 18, 2013 - 47 Weeks

Stats:

He didn't gain his usual pound this month. Maybe he's starting to slow down! He is still fitting into some 6-9 month clothes but mostly wearing 9-12 months. I can't wait to see how much he grows and changes in the next month. I'm guessing he will be pretty close to walking by his birthday. Guess we'll find out soon enough!

Magic House

  We headed to St. Louis today and went to the Magic House with Jack's Sister, Rachel and her kids, Sadie and David. We have been wanting to do several things in St. Louis while we are only a couple of hours away, but none of them sounded like any fun with an infant. Will is getting to the age now where he is much more cooperative, although still not a fan of being in his carseat for extended periods of time! Rachel's family are members at the Magic House so she used her guest passes to get us in for free! It was SOO nice of her to share and of course Katelyn had a great time.

Top: Fishing. The end of the pool was magnetic and the tip of the fishes were magnetics. This was one of Katelyn's favorite things and she was constantly asking to go back and go "Fishing."
Bottom: Playing around in Water World. They didn't spend too much time her which kind of surprised me. 

Shopping! It didn't take her and Sadie any time at all to fill up the shopping basket with food and head to the register. Then it was Katelyn's turn to be the checker. Grammie is helping her get stuff rung up. She loved playing cashier just like I remember loving to do when I was a little girl. I always wanted to be the one behind the register punching all the buttons and scanning things across the scanner. Oh the dreams of little girls haha!

 

Top: Sadie and Katelyn playing around on the board where you push the little plastic pins through to make impressions. They were having a blast because they were pushing against each other. Tons of giggling going on here!
Bottom: Climbing the tree that is several stories tall. Sadie was a pro, but Katelyn was a little apprehensive. She wasn't a big fan when other kids came her way. Guess she just needed her own time to make it. Needless to say she didn't last long and was back out.

Shadow Room!! They loved this as did the adults. Aunt Rachel lifted Sadie up and Jack lifted Katelyn up and they made quite the figures!

And then there was the static electricity ball! Jack was excited for this room - he remembers doing this at the Magic House when he was a kid. We were hoping to do one big family picture but they would only let 2 go at a time. Bummer! My hair didn't want to go up too much even with me jumping up and down trying to get it to cooperate, but man did Will's hair go crazy. I think Katelyn's hair looks kind of like a 90s hair do gone bad! And of course that lovely 3 year old smile to go with it! haha!

 

Left: Going down the 3 story slide. I think the girls went down it 7-8 times and only stopped because Aunt Rachel said it was getting too busy and they were having to wait too long in between turns. The girls would get to the bottom, look at each other and say "LET'S DO IT AGAIN!!" And up the stairs they'd run!
Right: Playing with Jack in the soap room.

And Will was such a trooper ALL day, as was David! Neither of them got their morning naps and both fell asleep on the 20 minute ride to the MH but of course promptly woke up once we got there. And there were no naps being taken while we were there. He was pretty happy until the end when he was hungry and ready to go!

Left: Driving a delivery truck.
Right: Go figure - fishing again. Once they caught the fish, they took it "upstream" and dropped it back in and then the fish would "swim" back to the pond. You could follow along the "stream" and watch it swim back to get caught again. She loved watching it go back downstream.

There was also a nursery. Dr. Sadie and Dr. Katelyn were checking up on the newest patients. Dr. Rachel ( a real Doctor!) was helping them out a bit. Katelyn kept saying that her baby was "SO heavy." She had a little boy baby that she named Will. Go figure! Sadie was a little more creative with her baby's name, but I can't remember what it was.

Giving her baby a bath, getting a weight on it, rocking it and feeding it a bottle. She was quite the lil Doctor or nurse because I never heard a peep out of the little guy the entire time we were in there. haha!

And Katelyn said this was one of her favorites as well - the Veterinarian Clinic. It was so cute and realistic! They had cages on both walls - one with dogs and one with cats. All the animals had names on their cages. Katelyn's dog was named "Daisy." She gave her a check up and decided she needed her leg casted so poor Daisy got a cast on her front leg. Then it was bath time. She gave it a good scrubbing in the sink and then there was an air dryer to dry it off and boy did the dryer have some power! It would blow the stuff animals right off the counter! It was very cute.

There were also rooms that were a Library, Bank, Electricity Company and Pizza Restaurant. They had a lot of fun in the Restaurant serving everyone.

After about 2.5 - 3 hours, the adults and babies were spent! The girls of course would still be there if we wouldn't have made them leave! We headed back to Aunt Rachel's house and the girls played, we had dinner and then headed home.

Watching a lil bit of Wild Kratts while we get the car loaded.

 Will slept the entire time home and I thought Katelyn would, but she stayed awake the whole ride!

We had a great time and look forward to going to the zoo, arch, and maybe science center!

Soccer!

 Katelyn started 6 weeks of a "Mini Soccer" sport. It's not a league and they have no games but learn the fundamentals of the game and it requires parental participation. This will be some good Daddy/Daughter bonding time! 

She was so excited to go to soccer tonight and asked about  it all day today. She was ready to wear her shin guards and play a game, but of course that wasn't the case. She didn't seem too upset and seemed to have fun but by the end she was done for the night. Since this was just the first night, they just worked on passing and stopping the ball. The hardest part - not touching the ball! I think that will be the biggest struggle the entire 6 weeks!

Sitting so nicely while the "coach" is talking and giving instruction.

And here we go!

Getting a little one-on-one instruction from Daddy.

And she stopped it. It's so cute to watch. She focuses so hard on getting her foot on top of the ball. Gotta love sports at this age!!!!

This was the gym.....MASS CHAOS! And they were all 3 year old and their parents...even crazier!

Kickin' hard!

Each week they will work on more drills. I'm excited to see what she is like at the end of the 6 weeks and if soccer is something she is interested in. The next "mini sport" is Softball and this Momma CAN.NOT.WAIT for that to start. Daddy will be the one with the camera on that sport!