You learn something new every day!

My little mister is all of the sudden learning new things every day. It is crazy:

-This morning Sam saw him and said "Hi Baby" James replied, "Hi Da" and they did that back and forth about 6 or 7 times. Amazing.

-If you ask him "do you want milky?" he will say "yeah!" if you ask him "do you want to go to bed?" he will answer "uh uh!". Sometimes it is hard for m to believe an 8 month old could communicate so well, but he does.

-He can now pull to stand.

-He goes from crawling to sitting like a champ.

-He has days where he crawls and other days when he forgets how.

-He says Mama but only when he REALLY wants my attention (I have only heard him say it a dozen times or so as opposed to Da or Dada which he says all the time)

-CAN PUT HIMSELF TO SLEEP!! This is our second best team effort thus far, second only to learning how to nurse.

-Gives kisses.

-Still wants to be held all the time but I do not mind. In fact, I like to hold him as much as I can.

-Loves it when I sing at the top of my lungs in the car.

-Loves dancing with me.

-Laughs at the same things I laugh at.

-Smiles when I take his photo, he knows exactly what's going on when he sees a camera pointed at him.

-Loves to swim (see video below).

-Loves to eat bananas.

-Will finally eat rice cereal!! Hooray!!

-Will always stop dead in the middle of a tantrum if I start to recite "Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?"

-Loves to read books with sound effects.

-Has traveled more in his 8 months of life that most do in the first 8 years of their lives (12 flights under his belt)!

James is so much fun. We love having such an amazing, sweet, and happy little baby in our lives. We love him so much!!

Our water baby

Sleepy Baby

To get James to sleep each night and for each nap I sit on an exercise ball and hold him and bounce him until he falls asleep. Usually it would take about five minutes. On tough days more like 25 minutes. Lately, it wasn't working at all. I would bounce for an hour, hand off to Sam who would bounce as long as he could stand it, and the kiddo would not fall asleep. When James and I went to LA a couple weeks ago it was just the 2 of us in a big bed and James slept through the entire night for the first time in his life; he was ready to have his own space. The 2 factors combined lead to one answer that I have not wanted to face: I have to sleep train him :(

And last night, James slept in his crib the entire night!! It was hard for baby, harder for mama. I would have snuggled him all night until he was in high school. But Sam, in his wisdom, informed me 8 months and 1 week was long enough and that it was time to transition the baby bird out of the nest. None of us have been sleeping well for the past few weeks.

Taken at 6 AM this morning:

Irrationally, I was scared James wouldn't like me anymore. But he was still his sweet snuggly lovey self when he woke up at 7AM:

Happy 4th of July

I forgot to post this earlier, oops!

I hope you enjoyed your 4th more than James; the fireworks were a bit too loud for him.

Non Creepy Crawler

Car Seat Coolers

Living in Arizona in the summer time requires a bit more out of a mom. For one thing it can be tough to avoid heat rash. To help, I have been making car seat coolers. Basically a car seat cooler holds ice packs in your child's seat to keep the seat and the buckles cool. That way, you don't burn your kiddo when you put them back in the car. Here is one I just made for a friend who has a new baby girl.

And it folds up nice and small so it can fit in your freezer!

Jammer's first trim!

Honestly I loved his shaggy look, but Sam convinced me it was time.

Well, that and people started to tell me how pretty my daughter was :-/

I wasn't super into the mohawk look, so I restyled it at home....

Isn't he handsome?

My slippery fish

I signed James up for swimming lessons. The class ages were 6 months to 2 years. It was a steal of a deal at $20 for 2 weeks. The lessons were held at the rec center and who knew there was a fun mini water park that is so close to home? AND it's only $3 per person!! We will definitely be getting season passes next year!

The first day of lessons I quickly noticed all the other kids were on average 2 years old. One mother admitted to me her kiddo was 3 and a half. So while the other kids practiced blowing a ping pong ball across the pool, I focused on making sure James didn't put the ping pong ball in his mouth. We did have fun little games and James loved jumping in (which was really me sitting him on the side of the pool counting to 3 and then flying him in the air and then into the pool). I was getting a decent workout and a decent tan. James did however improve his splashing skills. Now he goes wild in the bath tub soaking almost the entire bathroom.

Today was the last day of lessons and James was so excited to get there. He knew where we were going, I love seeing him flap his arms and kick his legs when he gets excited about something. I am really glad we did it, and I may even try to sign up to do it again for a later summer session.

To Learn

Have you heard of http://www.khanacademy.org/? It's amazing. You can go on and watch tutorials about various math and science subjects and learn, for FREE!! Amazing. I have always wanted to keep my math skills current so I will be able to help my children when needed. Now, there is an easy way to do so! I'm excited.

Cousin Outtakes and other things...

James, doing his Jim Carey impression

Um James, we're cousins, don't hold my hand.

Luke is bored with James' game of 'watch me get my binki with no hands'

Grace's best Courtney Love impression

CC is very helpful in quieting the baby, James is doing his best frog impression

Grace is checking the nutritional facts on the Marshmellows

Luke is preparing to be the next S'More spokes kid

Say S'More!!

Grandpa's 1st S'More, EVER!

Yum!

James just loved grandpa Ducks!

James met Kat for the first time!

And Uncle Richard

And he got his first set of bunny ears

He went to the beach for the first time.

And caught his first wave

And went on his first beach walk

(No idea what I was doing)

And on the walk wanted desperately to roll around in the sand

He spent WAY too much time in his captain's chair

He spilled an enormous glass of water in mama's lap.

And went on a golf cart ride around Friendly Valley.

He decided he had way too many treats while on vay-cay so he has been doing his best to work off the calories. Check out his Push-up position.

Note, he is balancing perfectly on his toes which he says makes for a tougher workout. With those muscles, who is going to argue?