Nine Months Old!

Well, here we are, nine months old. It is just crazy to think that we have a nine-month old baby. And, this baby now has two teeth. His second one came through on Monday. Bring on the corn on the cob!

He is trying new things every day. His latest favorite is blueberries. I really think I could mix dirt with blueberries and he would eat it. So far he loves them mixed with apples, cereal or bananas. He just opens his mouth and gobbles them right up as fast as you can shovel them in.

The other day I was eating a grapefruit and he was very interested in it. I thought there was no way he'd like it because it was pretty sour, but sure enough, he did like it. He is so cute because when he likes something he just keeps opening his mouth for more.

The weather here has been great, so I have had the windows open a lot. Yesterday he decided he needed to see out the window and pulled himself up as far as he could. He tried so hard to pull himself all of the way up that he almost had his feet off of the ground.




While he was in that corner he thought he'd check out the plant...thankfully I caught him before he decided to sample the dirt.



Since he was so interested in the outdoors I put his exersaucer in the doorway of the kitchen door onto the deck and he was pretty happy with that. His new trick is to do pull ups on the bar of his exersaucer. He will actually get his feet off of the floor, which is nuts. He definitely has quite a bit of upper body strength!

Harrison has his check-up tomorrow and I'll post an update on how that goes.

A Few Smiles and BBQ

Just a few pictures here to brighten your day!

Happy boy here...just hanging out on the living room floor:


And here are his trademark eyebrows...


One of Harrison's favorite things to do is pull himself up to standing at the shelf next to the TV where the electronics are. Trouble!!


Guess who napped on his hand? When Harrison woke up from his afternoon nap on Friday he had quite an imprint of his hand on his face. This picture can't even begin to do it justice!


But, he sure was a happy boy!


Today we took Harrison to lunch at Rudy's BBQ and let him try brisket for the first time. He gobbled it right up! He kept opening his mouth for me to feed him more. Anyone who has watched Harrison eat knows that he will clamp his mouth shut and shake his head from side to side if he doesn't want what you are trying to feed him. That's our boy! He must know he's in for a future of BBQ eating with us as parents.

Crawling!

To celebrate turning 38 weeks old Harrison decided to crawl yesterday. Not just a few steps here and there as he has before, but really crawl. He crawled back and forth to Mark and me and was so proud of himself!

He was at it again today, so this time it is for real. Now he's only going to get faster so I'm really not going to be able to contain him...uh oh!

Earlier in the day he was getting a bit bored with his toys, so I had to open the cabinets and get creative. Who knew a colander, metal bowl and plastic spoon could be so entertaining.

I haven't posted any video in awhile so thought I'd get some on here.

Here is a video of him crawling Tuesday evening:


And here is a video of him from earlier in the day when he thought the faces I was making were quite funny:

Happy Halloween from the Pumpkin Patch

Not much to report, just wanted to share a few photos from the pumpkin patch. It was a beautiful day here today! Enjoy :-)

Thanks to our friends Chad and Judee for the super cute shirt!

Week 37 Update

This picture was after our walk on Wednesday. I love him in his hat! He is still wearing his pajamas and had on a sweatshirt and vest since it was cold out, and he is definitely colorful!

Harrison is still doing his army crawl and seems to have picked up the pace quite a bit. He does get up on his hands and knees and will take a handful of "real" crawl steps, but then he just drops back down and scampers off. Soon I know he'll master the full crawl and then he will be unstoppable.

Early last week he finally got the hang of sitting up on his own. He sure seems happy that he can now move himself from place to place and sit up once he arrives at his destination.

Today he took off for an open window and was so happy to look out of it, feel the breeze and bang on the screen.

Since he's so mobile I've had to contain him in his pack and play more frequently now. He doesn't seem to mind though, and loves to stand up and bounce in it, as well as chew on the rails.

Last weekend he got to see all of his grandparents...they were all down for a visit. It was really exciting for him to have so many extra people here to entertain him! He just kept looking from person to person and smiling, especially when he was in his high chair and they were all in the kitchen with him. So cute! Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of him with all of them...whoops!

Harrison still only has one tooth, and it is definitely making its way in. Now when he chomps on my finger it definitely hurts! His second one must not be far behind, but still hasn't emerged.

He has mastered picking up his puffs it is lots of fun for him to feed himself. He doesn't seem too interested in feeding himself anything that is mushy though. He just likes to squeeze it and mash it up. He did feed himself a couple of bites of banana yesterday before smashing the rest, so we are improving.

We tried mixing Cheerios with his puffs, but he has shunned the Cheerios, picking out the puffs and leaving most of the O's behind. He has eaten a few rice Chex, though, so there is hope that we can move beyond puffs at some point.

Here he is eating some Rice Chex this afternoon

Last week we moved Harrison from his infant car seat to a bigger convertible one. It is pretty big, and the box it came in is huge. On Monday it was rainy and cold so we didn't go out, and Harrison was getting a little antsy. Thank goodness for the box...what a fun new toy!

Finally, a tooth...and more tricks

Harrison had been drooling like crazy last week, leaving a trail everywhere he went. By Saturday the drool had stopped and a tooth had started to break through on the bottom of his mouth! His first tooth is finally here. It is just barely peeking through the skin, but definitely there. The second one is probably not far behind...soon he'll have two cute little chiclets peeking out on the bottom of his mouth.

On Saturday we met Harrison's friend Shane and his family for dinner. Harrison had a great time watching the kids and just being social. So fun!

Here they are checking each other out

Hanging with their dads

Over the weekend we brought out a new toy for Harrison. It is a little table that he can stand up and play with that makes all sorts of sounds. His cousin Jeffrey got it for his first Christmas, so it's been well-loved and waiting for Harrison to be ready to play with it. By today he had mastered standing up at it and was exploring all of its parts. He sure seems to be having fun!

Today when I went to get Harrison up from his morning nap he greeted me with a big smile standing up at the side of his crib. This is the first time he has pulled up to standing in his crib and he was so proud of himself. Who knows what this means for us from here...I sure hope this isn't what he plans on doing during the middle of the night.

While eating his sweet potatoes today Harrison decided to sample his toes...so cute! We normally have the tray on his high chair but I didn't put it on this time, and he reminded me why I need to keep it on there. His toes sure get dirty when he does this!

Eight months old...and new tricks!

Well, we've made it to eight months and are all doing great! We celebrated Harrison's pseudo-birthday by taking him to breakfast at Kerbey Lane. He got puffs while Daddy and I got migas and pancakes. Yum! He had a great time sitting in his high chair watching everything and shoveling puffs into his mouth. He is definitely a good restaurant patron.


Here we are at breakfast

Later that day we went down to tailgate for a bit before the UT-Colorado game. I have to say Harrison looked super cute in his little Texas shirt, jeans and shoes. He had such a great time people watching and just taking in all the sights and sounds. We pushed him through a huge crowd in his stroller and everyone started yelling and laughing at the "UT baby"...he just ate it up, smiling at everyone and was just a happy little guy.


On Sunday Harrison tried venison. We pureed a little bit of a venison roast and mixed it in with his carrots and apples--he likes chicken this way and he liked the venison too.

Harrison is very close to doing a real crawl. He is up on his hands and knees all the time rocking back and forth and has taken a couple of "crawl steps" the past couple days before he drops down to his belly and does his army crawl. He is all over the downstairs so once he can really crawl I am going to have my hands full for sure!

He has now mastered pulling up to standing at our ottoman. He gets to his knees and just pushes up to his feet and is so proud of himself when he does this. Whatever is sitting on the ottoman is now fair game, so I can't leave the computer, remotes, camera, etc. there because he is all over it. Harrison squeals with delight when he gets his hands on one of these things...then falls down to the ground with it in his hands because he has not figured out how to sit back down. He has even taken a few steps along the ottoman to get over to what it is he is going after.



Today we had our first big playdate at our house. We invited Shane and Hunter who we see pretty frequently, Olivia who we have had a playdate with before, and a new friend Miles who lives around the corner. It was so much fun to see all of the little ones explore each other. Shane was the first to arrive, and Harrison was crawling around the floor with the hiccups. Shane thought that was the funniest thing and just laughed each time Harrison hiccuped. I guess Harrison thought he'd get Shane back for laughing at him, so he crawled right over him...basically poor Shane was a speedbump in his way. Thankfully Shane didn't seem to mind :-)




All the babies had fun playing with different toys (and snatching them from each other!) and seemed to like to watch and touch other kids. It was a lot of fun to see all of them interact with each other. Trying to get the five of them lined up for a picture was definitely like herding cats. See for yourself:


Tonight we cooked salmon for dinner and made a little piece for Harrison. Mark broke it up into little pieces on his tray and he fed about 10 bites to himself. Yum Yum!! It is sooo good for him so we are really glad he liked it. And, it is easy to eat without teeth since he still doesn't have any.




They say you are what you eat, and that is quite true with Harrison. He loves sweet potatoes and carrots, and as a result of his very high intake of Vitamin A he sometimes has a bit of an orange tinge to him.



Oompa Loompa doompadee doo...


Here he is enjoying breakfast this week

Harrison's Big Adventure

Last week Harrison took his first plane ride! Harrison and I flew to Birmingham to visit my sister. Her husband was out of town all week, so my mom was there helping and we got to see her too. Harrison had a great time with his cousins Jeffrey and Charlie. They were very excited to see him.

We had a connecting flight each way and Harrison did great on all four flights. He slept at least some on three of them and was just charming the rest of the time. As he rode through the airport in his stroller there was so much to look at he was just in awe. On the plane he liked to stand on me and look over the seat at all of the people behind him. He was just a great traveler!

In Birmingham he got to ride in the middle seat of the mini-van, which meant he had someone to look at instead of staring at the back of the seat. That was quite exciting for him! Jeffrey and I were riding in the way back and he got a kick out of being able to see us.

Bath time was great fun because Charlie joined Harrison in the bath tub. He was so happy to have another little person in there with him. They just splashed and laughed themselves silly!

Susie has two cats and Harrison loved watching them. He was very intrigued by them and would whip his neck around to watch them when they went through the room. He never did catch one though, they were way too quick for him.

Harrison's cousins thought it was just hilarious when I fed him peas for breakfast. They couldn't believe that anyone would eat vegetables in the morning.

The weather was beautiful and we spent Friday at the zoo. Harrison seemed really excited to be there and to see all of the animals. There were a lot of school groups there while we were there so there were kids everywhere...so much to look at! He had fun cruising in his stroller with Jeffrey pushing him all around. He loved riding on the train that goes all through the zoo. After we stopped for lunch I put him in the hip carrier because I could tell he was getting tired. He just crashed after about five minutes there...fell fast asleep for about 30 minutes as we continued to walk around the zoo.

Cruising around the zoo


Riding on the zoo train


Sleeping at the zoo


My mom and the boys at the zoo

It was a short visit but we had a great time and it was so much fun to see Harrison play with his cousins. He just seemed so happy to have other kids around. He enjoyed playing outside with the boys, riding in the little red car, blowing bubbles and just watching them.

Riding in the red car

Harrison weighed in on Tuesday at 17.79 pounds. He's gained 10 pounds since was born almost eight months ago. Crazy!

He has gotten really fast at scooting around the house and loves to head down the hallway to the front door and try to grab the blinds before I catch him. He also loves to eat puffs. He is great at getting them in his mouth and gobbles them up as fast as we can put them on his tray. His new game is to try and get his bib off while we are feeding him. Once he yanks it off he waves it around in the air and laughs. It is pretty funny but at the same time can definitely make meals even more messy!