Standing Colin

Colin has a pretty good laugh that shakes his body.

So Colin can stand on his own pretty well.  He does it whenever he has the opportunity now.  He can hold it for a good 5 count when he's not clapping or doing 'So Big'.  He's pretty proud of himself and so are we.  Walking shouldn't be too far away.

Traveling in a plane with a 9 month old was relatively easy.  Colin didn't give any trouble on the trip to or from VA for Uncle Sean's graduation.  We spent a lot of time in the car and around new people.  He got to spend a lot more time in the car with mommy so now that we are home, mommy is not allowed out of the room when she is here.  Everyone from CA came out to see Sean graduate and Colin did well visiting.  Don't think the faces are going to stick yet so we'll have to do it all again next time we see everyone.

Colin was able to get another stamp for his NP passport book at Shenandoah NP.  It was mostly foggy but we were able to see some bits on our 60mile drive through (I don't recommend that).

We also got to meet up with the Johnson's.  Colin had a full day play date with Rhys who is a bit more than a week older.  They played and traveled around DC very well together.

Before we left on this trip the doctor gave the okay to try a lot more foods.  I'd say about 25% makes in into his mouth and only 10% stays.  We are learning a few tricks to help get the food in and stay in but it seems that most foods just aren't good the first time.  Hobie loves coming in after meals to clean the floor.

He still mimics things, just not for very long.  They change pretty frequently.  He's sleeping a bit longer and better at night, which we are thrilled with.  There does seem to be this inborn behavior for destruction.  If something is stacked up or built Colin has to come over and knock it down and then go right back to whatever he was doing before.  He's not into creating, just making sure everything is as flat on the ground as possible.

Here are the May pictures:

9 months old

I guess there isn't a whole lot of new stuff going on since the end of last month.  He is improving all of the things he can do though.  He is much better at "saying" more and mimicking things.  He's increased his vocabulary of things he recognizes and can go grab.  We were able to get a decent video of him doing this.

We had our nine month check up and Colin is growing fine, although he is on the small side.  He's doing the things he should be.  His food menu has increased to more big people foods.  It also looks like his top 4 teeth should be coming in all together and pretty soon.

We are getting ready for our trip down to VA and DC.  We've been brainstorming about what to pack and not pack for Colin.  We put in a doggie door and stairs for Hobie to get in and out on her own.  The deck area is also fenced in now too.  We have our neighbors taking care of her while we are away (and bunny too).  Hopefully we don't come back to any surprises.

Here are a couple of pictures of his new favorite things to do to hold you over until the end of the month.

all toys that fit must be stuffed under the couch

a little head cock to the side with a smile, a favorite pose

racing mommy for toys

Bye-Bye April

April is over and we are looking forward to May.  We'll get to try out another plane trip down to see Uncle Sean graduate.  All of our California family will be coming out too so they'll get to see a more active and speedy Colin.

Colin has been improving his crawling skills and has ventured a bit into the standing arena.  It's a bit like the cartoons that don't know they ran off the cliff and should be falling, until they look down.  He'll accidentally let go or need to grab a toy with two hands and stand for a couple seconds.  When he notices he's standing...down he goes.  He's learning the rules of the road and some laws of physics as he's received a couple bumps and bruises in his travels.

He's more into toys, or rather hair, buttons, boxes, furniture, sticks, empty mayonnaise container, book corners, tethers holding toys and some random things on the ground.  Everything goes into his mouth.  "Yucky" is now a contender for first word.  He's also recognizing a lot of what we say.  He'll recognize names of toys and things.  He'll also mimic some actions.  Shaking the head is a fun game and the hand sign for 'more' are the most commonly mimicked.  New things pop up almost daily.

Here is the April album:

Happy Easter

Colin is approaching 8 months and celebrated his first Easter. He did very well grabbing eggs and try to eat them. The Easter Bunny left plenty of eggs to find and a basket that was nowhere near as interesting as things that had tags on them. He's a busy crawler keeping mommy and daddy on our toes. He's also quite the chatter box, don't know which side that came from.  The "D" and "T" sounds are pretty good as are any sounds from the tongue.  We are taking guesses on his first word/phrase. 

1. Da-da
2. Ma-ma
3. Hobie, no
4. Hi
5. I love you
6. Antidisestablishmentarianism

What is your guess?  Post a comment and hopefully we won't have to wait too long.


 Here are a few pictures from his Easter day.

The egg hunting ground

Stuff from the Easter Bunny

Trying on his Easter hat

plastic eggs are delicious

Stupid video upload

It wouldn't allow the video to upload in the last post and I didn't want to lose all the work.  I made a new post with the video that was supposed to be in the last post.

Speed Demon Daredevil

Colin is now fully mobile with "Baby ADHD". He doesn't really care where he's going as long as he is going.  He does love his mobility.  He throws caution to the wind and just goes.  He's figuring out that the floor and the table legs don't feel good when he runs into them.  He recovers quickly and is back at it again.  When he's tired of crawling he'll fuss his way over to pull himself up with help to walk around.  He's got a pretty good stomp/walk.  We had a week of beautiful weather and so we were outside on the grass.  He's pretty cautious about the grass.  I guess the texture just isn't right.  We'll be able to enjoy it again when it warms up more.  It's pretty incredible the progress he's made over the last week or two.


He tried some more foods now as well.  Yogurt is an okay addition to food as long as it isn't too strong.  Cauliflower is okay too.   We're figuring out the list of foods to some, little by little.

Colin's vocabulary is growing too.  Spitting and raspberry's are what he does mostly but he'll surprise us with some various sounds now and then.  He's concentrating more on what mommy and daddy are doing and trying to mimic  sometimes (at least it seems that way).

He also is developing some games to play too.  Peek-a-boo is still a big hit.  He'll swing a toy around toward our faces and giggle when we 'eat' it, then try it again.  He plays his own baby version of fetch.  He'll crawl around chasing a toy and then grab at it or swing his arm around until it moves and then chase it down to repeat again.

And here is March's album:

Colin's a Crawlin'

Spring is here - at least it feels like it.  Colin has been spending his time enjoying walks in the stroller, playing with Hobie at the beach and just hanging out on the porch.  He loves the warm weather.

Some great news is that Mr. Furious no longer makes an appearance at bed time, which is around 7:00 just after reading a book and getting a last bit of milk for the night.  Colin loves bedtime and falls to sleep quickly after laying down in his crib.  The bad news is that Mr. Furious now arrives sometime between 4:00 and 4:30 and isn't replaced by Mr. Handsome until he gets up for the day, around 6:00 or 6:30.  We're hoping that daylight savings will push out his furious time close enough to wake-up time so that we can just get up for the day then.  We'll keep you posted :)

Happy 7 month birthday Colin!

Happy leap day

February has finished and it seems like fall still.  I don't know if the groundhog saw his shadow or not but there should be something about winter not starting.  Our biggest snowfall, which was only a couple inches, was around Halloween.  Maybe it's better that Colin's first winter wasn't a harsh one.

Colin has reached a few big milestones.  He now has his 2 lower teeth.  Taking a picture of them has proven difficult.  When a 'good' one was taken it was difficult to tell if you were looking at teeth.  Hopefully we'll be able to get something for the March album.  We're going to go ahead and call it crawling.  He can prop himself up on his knees and lunge forward.  It usually ends in a faceplant, but not always.  He can move forward, just not very well.  Hopefully the crawling video will be another great March addition.  He has also grown up and moved out.  He sleeps in his room now which he seems okay with.  Naps are no problem but he gets up every couple hours during the night.  He doesn't have his night feeding anymore but he is getting up more often than when he did.

He is definitely recognizing food we eat and that causes the mouth to go into "big-boy mouth" mode.  That is the mouth open as wide as possible and the tongue wiggling around in there.  Luckily he's not fussy when he can't have our food...yet.  He eats plenty of his food.  Sweet potatoes and apples are on the top of the list.

He is more interactive with his environment now.  Mommy's hair is probably at the top of the list but he'll grab for anything in passing.  We've dug into his toy box and he'll play with his toys for a while now.  That usually entails swinging them around until the fly off somewhere and, of course, eating them.  He also seems to enjoy music.  He'll go the the library sometimes to listen to Ms Melissa sing and sing along.  He'll sing along with the baby music or mommy/daddy music on the radio.  Music will often produce a smile.

I guess that is all for now.  Here's the Feb album.

Yea!! 6 Months Old

       So we think that Colin is undergoing training to be a cage fighter.  He spends most of his awake time going through a pretty rigorous workout of push-ups, crunches, pull-ups and rapid leg squats.  He also is working on his attacks with his arms.  We're surprised he hasn't left any black eyes or bruises on us from his vicious arm chops.  Needless to say, he is quite active.  He's still working on crawling and sitting up.  He can sit on his own if he's propped and can scoot backwards pretty good.  His push-up clears the floor all the way to his toes but he doesn't get his knees under him very often.  He rolls quite a bit too but not to move very far.
   After letting us know, at 10p, 10:30, 11, 11:30....(you get the idea), that he was big enough to move out on his own we finally moved the crib to his room.  He's been doing fine but hasn't been sleeping very well for about a week.  That could be teething or just some random baby reason....we only know that we don't sleep.
   He's been eating more real foods.  Apples can be added to the 'like' list and peas (just like his daddy) can be added to the 'gross' list.  He loves eating and taking sips of water.

     We are looking forward to him crawling and adding more sounds to his growing baby vocabulary.  February is a short month so the album of pictures for the month aren't too far off.

We're mobile..kinda

So Colin is able to move around just a bit.  At this point it's more slowly scooting backwards.  He can roll front to back and back to front fairly well.
The other reason for the title is that blogger gave us some options for mobile phone viewing too.  Hopefully that means you can view it on your smartphone too.

 Colin bouncing away

Colin has done pretty well this month.  He becoming more vocal and using new sounds all the time.  He's unfortunately discovered the very high pitch whine.  Most of the others are just adorable.  His mobility was mentioned above.  During the day Colin will usually cook or bake with daddy since it seems to occupy him pretty well.  He's eating some different foods now as well as drinking plenty of milk.  On the list of likes he has: two types of sweet potatoes and banana.  On the dislike or not care for list are: carrots, rice-cereal and avocado.  If those get mixed with one he does like though then it's devoured.  He loves eating foods and taking drips of water from a cup.  The 'present' he'll leave us in his diaper now is just impressive.  I guess that's to be expected when the diet starts to change.

Things have been going well overall.  Colin had to fight off another cold.  We haven't really had much snow.  Bunny and Hobie are still alive and kickin'.  Here are the pictures for Jan: