9 months

We're coming off of one of our busiest weeks ever, and I should be in bed, but instead. . . I blog. :) I have all sorts of blog posts about what we've been up to, running through my head, hopefully I'll actually get them typed up. I know I owe some of you emails, too (I haven't forgotten!).

My sweet boy is actually 9 and a half months now. I took his 9 month pictures yesterday. I have a skinny, tall, gigantic headed baby! He is in the 20th percentile for weight (18 pounds 1 oz.), 70th percentile for height (28 and 1/2 inches), and 94th percentile for head size! He is in 6-9 month clothes, and it appears he will be for a while yet. The pediatrician asked if he is eating okay, and he definitely loves his food, he just doesn't eat too much at a time. He only drinks 3 and a half to 4 ounce bottles and has two meals of baby food a day. He LOVES to feed himself Ger.ber puffs (and Isabella likes sneaking one or two off his high chair tray)!

He still has some lingering effects from his bad acid reflux (which is a thousand times better). He tends to choke really bad at times, which is terribly scary! I couldn't even count how many times we've had to do the "flip him over and pound his back" thing. He still has a breathing monitor in his crib.

Due to his acid reflux, whenever he would sit up, he would spit up terribly (because of the pressure that put on his sphincter valve between the stomach and esophagus). We didn't want him spitting up and choking, so we just never made him sit up. Because of that he never sat up until around 8 months, which is very late. The pediatrician thought everything was fine, but wanted him checked out by Birth to Three. I also felt like things were okay, but had a very nervous feeling about the situation as well. The Birth to Three lady came this past week, and assured me that he is completely fine and normal, and that as I had suspected, he was slow in sitting up because we just never put him in that position because of the AR. She was more concerned about his choking / not breathing episodes and is going to come back again in 6 months to make sure he has grown out of that.


He waves bye bye, says MaMa and DaDa, has a pretty fierce fake cough, and clicks his tongue back at us if we do it. After seeing how well baby sign language worked with Isabella, I've also been doing it with him. He doesn't do any signs back at me yet, but I can tell that he knows what I mean.



He's been scooting around on his back (it looks crazy!) since a little before 6 months, to get wherever he wants (usually closer to his sister). About a week ago he started crawling backwards a little, so I assume the actual crawling won't be too far away. Almost every baby in my and Monte's family is a very late crawler (10-11 months) and walker!




He still loves and needs his sleep. He takes 2 to 3 good naps a day, and sleeps around 11 and a half hours straight at night. My only complaint is that no matter what time he goes to bed, he almost always wakes up around 5:30 in the morning, 6:00 if we're lucky! So after experimenting with different bed times to see if he would sleep in later (which he didn't) he goes to bed for the night around 6:00, and with Isabella going to bed at 7:00, Monte and I always have our evenings alone together, which is nice.


His hair is completely wild and curly, but I love it. Pictures don't do it justice as to how curly it really is. He is SO much fun, and I absolutely adore having a little boy. It's hard to believe he's only been around for 9 months, it seems like he's always been part of our family.

Rainy, Lazy Days

We've had a string of rainy days, which will hopefully end soon. I am anxious to get my flowers planted, and to pick rhubarb, and Isabella can't wait to help Daddy finish planting the garden. We also have visitors coming to stay three days this week!

I have no idea what she was doing here, but she really wanted me to take a picture.

Isabella is in to giving Jaymes some of her toys. And she insists that they are now his to keep. Yesterday she gave him her glow worm, and today she gave him her Little Mermaid ball. They loved rolling it back and forth to each other!

Mr. Curly! (and also Mr. Drooly)

Wild, curly hair.

The end of a long day. He's always extra tired on Sundays, because our only Mass time is at 8:30 Sunday morning. That's right when Jaymes usually takes his morning nap, so he's off schedule the rest of the day.

The Day We've Been Waiting For

We were pretty excited last night, when our builder stopped by and said he would be starting this morning!

This is the last time our yard will ever look like this. It's a little sad to lose some of our yard, but the extra space in the house will be worth it. And we should still have plenty of yard space left.

This was our view for the entire day. They had to move our swing set this morning, so we can't use it. Our neighbors (who we love!!) own the empty lot between their house and ours, and they have a swing set there from when their (grown) kids were little, and we get to use it while we don't have use of our back yard. Isabella spent the ENTIRE day swinging and watching all the commotion at our place. I had the monitor out there when Jaymes was napping, otherwise he just hung out in the Ergo.

We took a quick break to go to the lake and have a picnic, but it was a short one. It was very windy and chilly by the water.

And this is what things look like at the end of day 1. I don't know how much they'll be getting done in the next week, as we have rain forecasted for the next several days.

Room to Grow

We have spent the last year or so casually looking for a different house, but didn't find anything in our price range that would fit our needs. There aren't a lot of houses for sale in our town, and the ones that are are either WAY out of our league (fancy schmancy ones on the golf course) or else in need of A LOT of fixing up. We really like our house, it's just that we are outgrowing it now that Jaymes has come along. We've put a lot of work into this house, and we absolutely love both our yard, and the neighborhood on the very edge of town, where the houses are spaced out more. We decided over the winter to look into adding on to our house, and spent many winter evenings meeting with a contractor. In the end, we came to the conclusion that it's actually cheaper for us to add on, then to buy a different house, because of what houses are going for right now. And now in the next week or two this will all become a reality for us! We are entering into a whole new territory for us. I'm excited yet nervous - excited for it all to be done and have the extra room, nervous for having to live through a remodel/ new construction with two small children, especially one who is increasingly getting in to everything and is threatening to crawl ANY moment now. I'm not quite sure what the noise level will be like in the house, but I'm pretty sure there will be lots of pounding and banging going on! :) Almost all of our back yard will also be torn up from all the big equipment needed to dig for the foundation. That is where we usually spend ALL of our time during the summer, and now it will be off limits to us. And then there's always the issue of spending money - that makes me nervous, too, because that's how I am.

I'm planning on taking the kids and staying with my parents for a week or so, and then staying with Monte's parents for a week, too. But it's inevitable that we'll be here the majority of the time when this is going on, because we won't want to leave Daddy for too long! And I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, I really am quite excited, it's just the fear of the unknown I guess, because we've never undertaken a project of this magnitude before!

As far as what's happening is, we will be adding on a master bedroom (we'll have our first ever walk-in closet!) and a family room, we will also be residing the house with permanent siding. Also, closets and windows will have to be moved in two of our current bedrooms. I'm really excited about the family room because it will be facing the backyard with patio doors going out, so as the kids get older I can watch them from inside the house. Our living room, dining room, and kitchen all face the front yard, so I don't feel comfortable letting Isabella go outside to play by herself in the back yard, because I can't see her from inside the house! This will give us four bedrooms, so Jaymes will finally be able to move out of our room. :) He'll move into Isabella's current room, and she'll move into our current room. And, for now, we'll keep one as the guest room/ office. We'll be doing everything we can to try and save some money along the way, so Monte and his brother-in-law will be doing some of the work (like putting up all the siding, and installing carpet). Anyway, you can join us on our little "journey" if you'd like as I plan to blog about the construction as we go, and post before and after pictures.

This is currently where our house "ends". This hallway will continue a little ways then open up into the new addition.

Little fisher girl

Monte was home today, and decided to take Isabella on a spur of the moment fishing outing. She thought she was pretty special being the only one to get to go with Daddy!

Mother's Day

I had a very nice Mother's Day weekend. We made our first trip to the zoo for this year on Saturday. It was probably our nicest day (weather wise) we've had all year, it was gorgeous!

Jaymes made it to the first exhibit, an acquarium of Nemo fish which he laughed and laughed at, then slept the rest of the time!

We hung out at the park at the zoo afterward, which is Isabella's favorite park that we go to, and ended the day with DQ ice cream treats. It really was the perfect day! And you're probably sick of me saying this, but I am so in love with my Ergo, why didn't I get it sooner!?! It's so much easier than hauling the stroller everywhere, and unlike when he's in the stroller, Jaymes will sleep in the Ergo. I think he gets too stimulated watching everything going on around him when he's in the stroller.

Yesterday I got to spend most of the day by myself, working on Jaymes' quilt, while Monte took care of the kids. I got the whole top layer of the quilt done! Hopefully I'll have the rest of it done soon.

Our afternoon in pictures

This and That

It's a very quiet week around here this week. Isabella went to spend a few days with her grandparents, so it's just Jaymes and I hanging out all day. I am missing Isabella, but it is really nice to spend this special one on one time with my sweet boy, he's getting spoiled!

First time in the swing today, it was finally nice enough.

I turned the big 3 1 yesterday, yikes! It's true what my grandma always told me, time really does go faster as you get older! My mother-in-law was staying overnight with us the previous night, so Monte and I got to go out on a date. She asked if Isabella could come back with her, so I decided to spend a good part of yesterday and today doing something I've been wanting to do for a long time - make Jaymes a quilt. Although, I'm not even close to being done, I've gotten a very good start, and I'm really excited about it.

My mom came for a visit a few weeks ago, and brought my niece with, the girls had SO much fun!



Our church hosted a mother/ daughter tea on Sunday. I was on the committee to plan, organize, decorate, etc. for it, and it was pretty fun!

Isabella's name was drawn, so she got to take home one of the balloon boquets, she was pretty excited about that.

I had to work at it, so Grandma came down to take Isabella. We had an acapella group for entertainment.