Atticus' 3rd birthday at the park

This adorable nephew of mine turned 3 last week. 


He warms my heart like his mama and makes me laugh like his dada.  He is a best friend to both Ryan & Kaeden, and I am so grateful for 3 years (and hopefully many more!) of having him nearby.

We had an awesome day at an awesome park to celebrate him, and we all had a blast. 

First stop, swings!
 

Then carousel:


And boats:


And train!

Best buds

The playground wasn't too shabby either!

Boys racing

Sweet Savannah (A's cousin on the other side) posing for some photos!

Ethan looking on

What's a party without food!?!

We had train cupcakes all planned out until Atticus informed us that he did not want train cupcakes.  He wanted flower cupcakes.  So, flower cupcakes are what he got! :)

Kaeden, diving in!

Proof that Courtney was there too :)

All of the kids were pretty excited about opening presents.

I got to take some 3 yr portraits at Duke Gardens on Saturday.  I just love this smile!




And let's not forget this adorable little one either :)

 

Happy Birthday, Atticus!

9 months

Dear Ethan,

Happy 9 months!

 

You continue to change daily, and I'm reaching that point where I just want to stop time and make you stay put for a little while!!

You are officially on the move.  Yes, I know you've been on the move for a while now, but it has become constant and also a little bit troublesome.  That staircase that used to seem safely far away from your play space?  Now you're there in 30 seconds, no problem.  The floor beneath the kitchen table is your very own buffet.  You've switched almost entirely to a traditional crawl, and a fast one at that!  And you are pulling up on everything.  It's that phase of babyhood where you don't play with toys all that much, but just explore, explore, explore.

Your personality is developing too.  You have some definite opinions, and you're expressing them more and more.  But you're also still just as sweet as could be, giving bashful smiles to most people you meet, as long as you're safe in Mommy's arms.  And you give the best kisses and snuggles any Mommy could hope for!

Apparently you thought Mommy's birthday present was a good support.

You still babble a lot more than either of your brothers did at this age.  You might be our only early talker. 

You LOVE to eat.  It doesn't even have to be food.  You are constantly on the lookout for any and every tiny bit of leaf/lint/fuzz/crumb/whatever that you can find on the floor, and it immediately goes in your mouth.  It's a fight to get it out too - you'd think I didn't feed you 7 times a day, but I do!

Kaeden and Ryan are in a phase of eating whole raw carrots, and you do not like to be left out!  Apparently, it makes a good teether :)

You got another tooth this month, almost exactly one month after the first one showed up.  And your hair is picking up pace.  You're still not catching up to Ryan at this age, but you're far ahead of Kaeden :)

You hate loud noises that catch you off guard, especially when accompanied by other startling stimuli - for example, a large inflated balloon released to fly around the room - NOT a fan.  Or the time that we went to visit the horses in the neighborhood and one of them sneezed.  Tragic.  You cry almost every time we walk into your bedroom because you know it means I'm getting ready to put you down for a nap and every time we walk into the garage because I'm about to put you in the car.  But once you get settled in either place, you're generally fine.  You can't stand to be teased.  If I say I'm going to nurse you and walk anywhere close to the couch and then realize I forgot to do/grab something and turn around, you lose it.  Same goes for the bath.  You LOVE the bath.  If I say the word bath, walk into the bathroom with you, and then walk out, once again, you lose it.

You continue to adore Ryan and tolerate Kaeden for the most part.  It's definitely getting trickier to manage your interactions with them now that you are constantly getting in their way, knocking over their blocks, etc. but it's also fun to see your relationships develop.

A little reading time with Kaeden

This month, we traveled to CT/RI for Miss Abby's wedding, and you got lots of bonding time with Nana & Papa (and Uncle Kyle & Aunt Debbie!) while I ran around to various wedding events.  We also got to visit Mimi's amazing house on the shore of Rhode Island.  You would have liked to put every little rock and shell in your mouth, but we tried to avoid that!

Photographing this age is always challenging, because you so badly do not want to be still.   I had to resort to sticking you in a toy bin :)  But sometimes those turn out to be the best shots! 

8 months

Dear Ethan,

You turned 8 months old at Ampersand, so I'm a little behind.  Let's see if I can remember what you were doing 2 weeks ago.  You're moving too fast to keep up!

 

You continue to use the army crawl almost exclusively, but you're getting more skilled at it.  You are beginning to explore more and more.  You also figured out how to sit back up from crawling, which is one of my very favorite milestones :)  

Exploring inside the cabinet :)

You have pulled up to standing, although it is not at all a regular thing.  It was quite a surprise, though, to be sitting in Ryan's room playing with him and look over to find you standing up, holding onto his bed!

Practicing your standing with Daddy

Apparently, you were teething last month, because on July 30, you got your first tooth!  It's hanging out by itself for now.  I joke that you just want to be like your cousin, Courtney, because now you both have just the one bottom tooth.  It's pretty cute.

You had your first bath in the big tub this month with your brothers.  I was a little nervous putting all 3 of you in there, but Ryan was a safe buffer between you & Kaeden, and I think it was actually helpful to be crammed in there so that you weren't as likely to topple over.  Anyway, you loved it!  Soaked up every minute of it :)  

 

 

Note the water flying past your head :)

You are eating like crazy.  You love food... especially food that you can feed yourself.  I introduced puffs this month and you were so thrilled with that that you quickly moved on to cheerios, yogurt melts, little slices of banana, peach, and your new favorite (introduced at Ampersand)... watermelon!

You are also in a squealing/shrieking phase, which drove everybody a little crazy at Ampersand.  You use it to communicate, and most of your urgent communication happens at meal time when you're not getting food fast enough, so there was a lot of meal-time squealing going on.

Kaeden, insisting on feeding you your water bottle that you haven't yet really taken to.

Most of the time, you only take 2 naps now, unless one of them is especially short or you wake up super early.  You are eating 3 meals a day and then nursing either 4 or 5 times depending on how the day goes.  Of course, our first night at Ampersand, I was so scatter-brained that I forgot to nurse you before bed and you didn't seem to notice or mind... or perhaps you were just so worn out from the trip!

I thought that Ampersand would be the perfect place for your 8 month photos, but as it turns out, you really like to eat grass.  Getting you to look at the camera in any kind of natural environment was a challenge to say the least.  For every photo of you looking up, there are at least 5 of you reaching for and/or eating grass.  Still, the backgrounds are nice.  Here are the highlights :)