A Different Perspective

Chris (at home on the phone with Sarah who is driving to a meeting): "I love you. Have fun. Be safe."

Noelle: "Why did you say, 'be safe?'"

Chris: "Because I wanted Mommy to be safe."

Noelle: "...like, don't see any crocodiles??"

Chris: "Yes, that's what I meant."

Insight from Noelle

"You know what? The moon doesn't have a mouth so it can't talk back to God."

West Texas Fair

We got to go to the fair way back in early September. The four of us had a great time going to the petting zoo, eating yummy food, and riding carnival rides (including Noelle's first roller coaster).

9 Months Old

I'm only 2 days late this time!!

Jared turned 9 months old on Thursday. There's not a whole lot that's new since I posted an update about him two weeks ago, but here are some cute pictures!

Jared is such a happy little guy! And he still has an orange nose.

He has started crawling on his hands and knees this week. Occasionally, he'll start forget and go back to army crawling, but he's up on all fours most of the time now. He's not quite as fast that way, but I'm sure that will change in no time!


He's also pulling up on things a little, especially things that are lower to the ground like this stool.


Speaking of crawling, Jared is into everything. One of his favorite things is pulling books off the bookshelf and sucking on shoes. Bleck! We borrowed a super-yard from a friend (THANK YOU, BECCA!!) and that has been a great addition to our home. Jared isn't a huge fan of it most of the time, but it contains him for a few minutes. We use it a lot to block doorways.


He's studying to become CPR certified:


He went to his first fair:
He loves to swing!



He got another haircut, and looks super cute. No more baby come-over!

Noelle and Jared are playing more together. She still loves having a little brother.



Recently he's started putting his hands up and reaching for us when we're reaching down to pick him up. I love that!

He's wearing mainly 6-9 month clothes & size 3 diapers. I'm thinking he's probably on the small size, but we'll get his official 9 month stats later this week.

Noelle's quotes of the day

"Mommy, why do you only wear t-shirts instead of your pretty clothes?" (Umm, because I have kids who ruin my pretty clothes with spit up and markers!)

Noelle had a tea party set up on the floor, and Jared ruined it. Noelle calmly walks to her play kitchen, picks up the phone, and says, "Hello...Police? There's a baby at my tea party."

8 (and a half) months

Well, I'm way way behind on this one. But better late than never.

Several days ago (as in 16) , Jared turned 8 months and here is what he's up to now:

He's army crawling everywhere, and is pretty fast at doing it. Hopefully this will mean that I'll lose the rest of my baby-weight soon because I'm chasing after him a lot. :-)

Chris' solution to the crawling:

Right before he turned 8 months old, he started getting himself to a sitting position by himself. He started in his crib, and we'd go in to get him in the morning and he'd surprise us by sitting up! (Now, he does it all the time!)

He's jabbering a bit more.

He eats a ton!! His favorites are fruit, broccoli, peas, and carrots. He thinks baby cereal is okay, and his least favorites are squash and green beans.

We took him on his first picnic, but it was cut short because of ants. Urg!

He takes one nap around 11:30 or so, and will sleep around 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

He's started waking up between 5-6am, but as soon as he eats he'll usually sleep until 8. I'm not super fired up about this schedule, but it makes me get up early and be productive, so that's good. As a result, I've been going to bed around 9. Yes 9...I've given up on being young and hip.

This month we went to East TX to visit their great-grandparents. Here are some pics from that trip:
The biggest news from this month is that we've figured out that Jared probably has food allergies, too. Major bummer. We mixed some formula in his cereal and he broke out in hives with milk formula. With soy formula he seemed to do okay at first, and then when I gave him a bottle, he threw up the whole thing. It was disappointing, but at least we know what we're doing a little more this go around.

And, he may be allergic to dogs, too. Anytime a dog licks his face, he'll break out a little bit. Luckily, our dog is small and doesn't shed much, so he doesn't seem to be too affected by her.

I wonder where she heard this?

Noelle (stern voice): "Jared, do you think you're making a good choice?"