Chloe is Eight Months Old!

I'm a little late in posting, but Chloe turned eight months old on Friday. She now has seven teeth and I think that she may be working on another. I am so happy to report that she is sleeping better and better. I decided (after some internal debate) to stop nursing her during the night. She got to where she was waking up between 1-3 about two months ago when she had the ear infection and she's been doing it ever since. I talked to friends and the pediatrician and decided that she's now waking from separation anxiety and not hunger. The past few nights she has slept through until almost 7:00 and it has been wonderful! We think that she's enjoying the cold weather. We keep the heat at 68 degrees during the winter and she seems to like that.

She had sweet potatoes with us on Thanksgiving. She has also started eating pears, couscous, Arrowroot cookies, and Zwieback toast. I'm tempted to stop feeding her baby food and just do table food, but I may wait until after Christmas just to make traveling easier. It's not like Chloe knows one way or the other.

She is still crawling and pulling up. She is beginning to let go while standing. She always makes funny faces when that happens like she isn't quite sure what to do next. She has also begun pushing her walker. She is having to battle Sawyer to play with anything these days. He would rather have us put toys on the stairs than let Chloe have them. It's pretty funny to watch, but not so much for Chloe I'm sure.

She is saying, "dada," "mama," "gaga," and "baba." She isn't directing the sounds to anyone in particular. It is mostly just noise at this point. She seems to me to be quite verbal for her age, but I'm attributing that to her having Sawyer as her mentor. I've also started signing with her, but she has yet to reciprocate. We're doing eat, more, milk, water, drink, cookie, cereal, banana, sleep, bath, light, Mommy, Daddy, and all gone. I've noticed that Sawyer is signing while he speaks from time to time since I started signing with Chloe. He will be a great teacher for her in more ways than one.

It took forever to get this barrette in her hair. Sawyer saw it and wanted one too.

Her little cheeks and nose are orange just like Sawyer's were...too many carrots!

I love this outfit!

Hansel & Gretel Would Be Proud!

We decorated a gingerbread house while Mom was here last week. Mom found the kit in the Target circular. It included everything that we needed and even had a tray with slots to help assemble the house.

Sawyer seemed to have a good time. I was amazed that he actually stayed in the kitchen for the entire project. I know some adults who don't have that long of an attention span. He did go a little crazy with the sprinkles. I think that I'll be sweeping them up until the Apocalypse. He also tried to eat the gum balls and the Spree so we had to really watch what went into his mouth. Mom had the great idea to let him decorate a ginger snap while I was piping the icing. That helped him feel like he was contributing I think.

Such concentration!

Sawyer took his sprinkling job very seriously.

Viola! The finished product.

Put Me in the Zoo

We went to the Dallas Zoo on Saturday. I had been wanting to take Sawyer for some time now and I thought it would be a great way to celebrate my birthday. I think that Sawyer had a good time so I was glad that we went. We took Chloe out of the car seat carrier and let her ride in the stroller itself so she had a good time. I feel horrible that I didn't take any pictures of her but I promise she was there too!

We got a membership so now we can go back as many times as we want for the next twelve months. I can see me packing up the kids one morning and heading out. It takes about forty minutes to get there from our house. I think that the next time we go I will bring the wagon because we ended up pushing around a half full double stroller most of the time. Sawyer kept wanting out to get closer to the animals which is understandable since that's why we went. It will just be easier for him to climb in and out of the wagon than the stroller. We met lots of people pushing empty strollers so it was pretty funny. Chloe is sitting up better and better so I think that the wagon will be a good idea. I would also probably pack a lunch next time because we spent $15 on a not-so-tasty meal. It also took time to get the food and that's time we could have spent looking at the animals.

Sawyer loved the carousel. He chose an animal that didn't go up and down, but he didn't seem to mind.

There were animal photo ops such as this elephant located sporadically throughout the zoo. Sawyer was afraid of all of them!

Nothing is scary when Daddy is around.

He wasn't afraid of the pony ride; go figure!

Sawyer and the "elephapha."

I'm not sure that Sawyer ever understood why he couldn't get any closer to the animals.

I was so excited for Sawyer to see a camel in person because he always requests to see one when we're in the car.

Are you going to finish that?

I have yet to find a food that Chloe doesn't like. The only baby foods I have avoided contain strawberries and corn. I'm going to wait until she's one year old to have those foods due to possible allergies. She has moved on to 2nd foods and is having them three times a day. As far as table food she has had bananas, pasta, avocado, peas, carrots, squash, zucchini, biter biscuits, apple wagon wheels, and fruit and veggie puffs. It is so hysterical to watch her shove in the food. She acts like it might be her final meal!

I think more peas made it onto the high chair than in her mouth.

Chloe loves to eat, but scrubbing the food off her face, not so much.

She's not too terribly impressed with biter biscuits, but I think she's warming up to the idea.

Chloe went bananas over the bananas!

Chloe still enjoys the kitchen, even when there's no food around.

Feeding the Ducks; Take Two

We went out to feed the ducks again yesterday evening. I was more prepared with the camera so I got some nice shots. The ducks, one in particular, were aggressive again. I brought TWO loaves of bread this time and they ate it all. Sawyer was still a little bit scared of them I think, but he was a trooper and still fed them. He still stayed really close to Daddy though. We started out with Chloe in the stroller but she wasn't happy with that so we took turns holding her. She is so incredibly rotten!

Here they come!

We made sure to give him big pieces so that the ducks wouldn't snap at him.

You can tell that Chloe can't wait to be running around with her brother.

Daddy and his favorite girl.

I almost captured that smile I love so much.

An Aggie Halloween

We have great power as parents. We can dress our kids in all kinds of crazy outfits for Halloween and they're none the wiser (at least for the first few years). I thought I would take advantage of another Halloween and dress the kids in A&M garb. It will probably come back to haunt me and they'll both go to Texas, but God willing and the creek don't rise they'll both be Aggies! I figure that I'll tell them that they can attend any college, but if they want it paid for it will have to be Texas A&M! :)

We didn't go door to door this year. We figure that Sawyer will be ready next year. We thought if we went this year he would want to trick-or-treat everyday and that would drive us crazy! He helped me answer the door and hand out candy and he seemed happy with that. Chloe was cutting her seventh tooth so she wasn't really in a holiday mood so Lorne put her to bed.

It took an act of Congress to get Sawyer to sit next to his sister.

I SWEAR she did the Gig 'Em all by herself. She's a natural!

Sawyer was happier to take a solo shot.

Chloe just seems to be happy no matter what.