8 Teeth and Counting......

"What you talkin' bout Willis?" Check out those lips!  This was the face Ethan kept making when I tried to get a look at his new teeth.  I would say "Let me see your teeth!" and try to pry his lips apart, and he would just pucker up his lips and not let me see inside.

You can only see his two bottom ones here, but this kid has 8 teeth!  His bottom middle came in first, so those are well established since August, but a couple weeks ago we noticed his top two teeth starting to emerge and then the other two top ones on the sides quickly made themselves known, much to Ethan's discomfort.  We thought we'd be done with new teeth for a little while, but nope, earlier this week while Ethan and I were playing with a little flashlight I noticed he had two teeth coming in on the bottom on either side of the middle ones!  So now he's got 8 teeth! 

 

 

We recently bought this stroller on KSL classifieds.  It's one of those all-in-one jobs, it can be a jogger, stroller, and attach to our bikes!  Here's Ethan all cozy for a morning walk.  We've really enjoyed being  able to take him with us for bike rides too!  I wish we would've got one earlier in the summer so we could've enjoyed using it more before the cold sets in!

Here's Brandon and Ethan while we were down in St. George last weekend.  We were taking a quick break to let Ethan out to stretch his legs!  He does pretty good in the stroller, but an hour ride is about his limit.  The weather was absolutely perfect in St. George last week, just in the low 80's high 70's and lots of clear skies!  If only we could get the mild weather to last a bit longer!

At the playground on the slide! Can you see his little bit of hair sticking up?  Ethan loves going down the big twisty slide by our place. 

Same outfit, but down in St. George at a playground there.  Ethan loves to explore these places.  He can get around pretty good on his own, but I have to stay close to keep this adventurous boy from falling off these things!

Again with the tough guy face!

Yesterday at Brandon's work, they had families come to trick-or-treat around the office.  So we took Ethan's cart, green pumpkin (it has an 8 pound weight in it to slow it down) and his Dragon costume and headed over!  He got a sucker from the receptionist and would not let it go! He pushed that cart one handed!

Brandon did unwrap the sucker and let Ethan have his first taste of candy!  It was a very messy and sticky situation!  We had a good time!  

Sleepy time pictures and other updates!

Ethan playing at the little play ground by our place.  He loves to go there and practice climbing the stairs!  He also enjoys going down the slides! 

I forgot to add a few bits of information in my last post, like Ethan's 9 months statistics!  A couple of weeks ago, we took Ethan in for his 9 month appointment and here are the results:

Height: 30 inches

Weight: 27.3 pounds 

(I think he actually strained a muscle in my shoulder last week! I woke up in the middle of the night and it was just killing, and it lasted for a few days! The problem is while you are carrying him, he's not content just to be held, he likes to lunge for things and when you're walking up the stairs, carrying him in one arm, then groceries and his diaper bag in the other, it isn't an easy feat! I used to wonder how "Mom's" did it!)

Here's a list of things that he's into and can do now:

1)   Crawl with bum off the floor, he's finally able to go up from the army crawl.

2)   Pull himself up holding onto pretty much anything, the wall, the couch, my pant leg.

3)   Stand by himself for several seconds without holding onto anything.

4)   Cruise around the house walking as long as he can hold on to something.  I think he'll be taking some real steps on his own any day now.

5)  Takes two naps a day for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours each.  Then is sleeping much better through the night, but with his teeth coming in, he does get a little sad from time to time and wants his Mommy and Daddy.  He goes to bed around 8-9pm and usually sleeps till 4-5am and then has a little bottle, then goes back to sleep till about 7:30am. We're getting more sleep then we have in 9 months!

6)   Clothing Size: 18-24 months!

7)   Teeth: 2 bottoms came in July, 2 top ones are working their way down as I type.  They look big compared to his bottom ones.

8)   First words?? Well not really, he babbles a lot making all kinds of sounds and we think he knows that Brandon is "Dadda," and will say it to him, but we're not totally convinced.  He's fluent in duck and walkie-talkie static sounds.

9)  Clap hands and is starting to wave bye-bye.  He can also do the sign for "milk" and requests me to sing one of his favorite french songs that has hand signs, so he'll do the hand sign that's in the song and gets really happy when I sing it to him. 

I think that's it, it's amazing how much this kid is learning and how fast he is growing! 

I let him take his new ghost spinning light toy to bed with him.  He can push the button on his own and thinks it's pretty cool.  

This is him with the lights still on, so you can see what it looks like.

This kid doesn't just stay laying down when you put him in bed.  It's a battle that I choose not to fight anymore.  Usually I lay him down and no matter how tired he is, he'll immediately get up and start jumping on his bed.  So I just give him a kiss, and walk out of the room.  Within a few minutes he lays down in whatever position he wants, usually on his tummy with his bum in the air, and totally uncovered.  I try to sneak back in and cover him up, but that kid is a light sleeper and he catches me doing that and wakes up and the jumping starts all over again.  So I either have to wait awhile, till he's really out, or just accept that his baby fat will keep him warm!

Summer is really over, but let's take a look back!

This kid sure loves the water! This is a picture of him in my brother's kiddie pool when we went to my niece's birthday party in July.  I took him swimming a lot over the summer.  We did a couple "Mom and Tots" swim lessons with my little sister Nathalie and my friend Betsy as our teachers!  Ethan did great as the youngest swim student there.    

Ethan loves books!  Here he is reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."  One of his favorites, and he definitely has his favorites!  If he doesn't like the book, he's quick to push it aside and find the ones he likes.  I read probably 10-15 books to him every day!  It's one of the few times he'll sit still!  He giggles at the pictures he likes and points at things he finds interesting.  He's our little book worm!

We took a Sunday afternoon drive over to Gardner Village and Ethan got to meet some real life ducks!  He's been making this duck sound for weeks now and we thought he could try to converse with these guys.  

He was fascinated by the ducks and we watched them for a while and fed them some of Ethan's treats.

Check out the hat!  This was back in the day when Ethan let us put hats on his head, and he left them on.   Those days are gone now, maybe one day he'll decide he likes them again.  

What a cheeser!  This was at Brandon's family reunion up in Idaho.  He was hamming it up for Brandon and his camera!  

I call this Ethan's "The Rock" pose.  You know the former WWF wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.  He has this raised eyebrow, intimidating look he likes to use, plus with Ethan's power fist, this is sure to scare any of Ethan's opponents as he sits in the arms of his loving Grandma.   

Ethan gets his first dip in the pretty chilly reservoir up by the place we have Brandon's family reunion.  He wasn't a big fan of being in this floaty, he was happy to sit on the shore and try to eat the rocks he picked up. 

Daddy and Ethan hanging out at the reunion.  Ethan found a toy to chew on.  This kid has 3 teeth now!   

Here's Ethan with his cousin Justin army crawling it up the hallway of our condo.  At this time Ethan could only really army crawl, and his cousin was ordering him around like one of his cadets in boot camp!  They were having a ton of fun together!

Pushing his cart!  Notice the hand weights in the cart to help slow him down!  He can walk pretty good holding on to this and it's pretty funny watching him go.  

Summer went pretty quickly like it usually does, I loved getting to spend time with Ethan all day.  Now I'm back to work, part-time, which has been great, though I do miss the full-time pay check! 

Today we had our first taste of winter with snow actually falling in big, fat flakes.  It only lasted an hour or so, but managed to coat the mountains in white.  It seems we didn't really have much of a Spring and went straight from Winter to Summer, and now here we are skipping Fall, which is my favorite time of year!  I get so excited seeing the fall colors light up the mountains first, then creep into the valley, then bright orange pumpkins at the store ready to take home to carve for Halloween, and of course October is my birth month, so I think that has something to do with it too!

So so long Summer, hello winter!