Portrait of an 8-month-old

Colin is now 8 months old (almost 9!). I thought this last year of Jason's fellowship would drag...instead it's flown by.

The Good

• He's sleeping through the night on a regular basis. And by that I mean 12 straight hours. Hooray for uninterrupted sleep!
• He's napping easily and regularly during the days, and has learned how to take effective catnaps in the car since we're usually on the go.
• He's growing great. He weighs 21.5 pounds and is 30 inches long.
• He's still an extremely easy baby.

The Bad

• He loves to eat and loves food. This would be "good" except that if you have "real" food in front of him and try to feed him "baby" food, he gets very upset.
• Along these lines, when he's no longer hungry, instead of turning away or closing his mouth, he lets you put the food in, then raspberries it out back at you in a spray. This is especially fun when it's sweet potatoes. That orange puree is great to clean off the walls.
• He still blows out his diaper regularly, sometimes several times a day. This is probably also related to how much he loves to eat.
• He is extremely determined to become mobile and is just weeks, maybe days, away from crawling. This is bad because I am too cheap and too lazy to babyproof a house I'm moving from in 5 weeks. If you see him attempting to crawl, please knock him down (gently).
• He has a "happy" shriek so shrill it defies description. Jason's family thinks he inherited from him, my family blames me. I was able to capture it on camera. It actually gets much louder than this, often in public places (like during sacrament meeting), but you should still probably turn down your speaker volume if you choose to watch it.

The Adorable

• He spends 85% of his waking hours smiling, if not more.
• He has moved on from cooing to babbling, and loves to say, "dadadada," "mamamamama," and "bababababa."
• He is so, so cuddly. I just love that!!
• He adores his family and gets so excited any time he sees me, Jason, or Ethan. When they're riding in the back of the car, Ethan can make him laugh and laugh. I love listening to it.
• I think he's so cute, but his personality is even more adorable than his perfect little cheeks. We just love him to pieces!

Boys N' Berries

I took the boys strawberry picking with our usual group of preschool friends on Wednesday. The weather was gorgeous and there were tons of delicious berries. Ethan decided I should pick them while he ate them. Colin agreed. We had a fun morning and came home and made freezer jam. Yum!

Ethan-isms

Recent thoughts from our 3-year-old:
(shown above playing hopscotch in our front yard last week with friends Ryan and Elijah)

"Well, that might be a little bit of a problem for me, guys." When told by his dad that bedtime was in 5 minutes.

"I can help, 'cuz I'm a good guy!" When told by his mom that Colin needed a diaper change.

"Cooperate!" Yelled at his mom from beneath his shirt, when I was apparently taking too long to get his shirt on. A phrase he hears every morning while throwing up 3-year-old blocks to my efforts to dress him.

"Great Caeser's ghost!" A response to just about anything exciting, picked up from one of his favorite shows (Backyardigans).

"I'm smart, huh?" After he informed me about some fact or other. His dad is always telling him how smart he is. I hope this high self-esteem sticks around throughout the rest of his life.

"But you're not a dad." In response to my explanation that I would be gone when he woke up the next morning because I was going to run a race. NOW would be so horrified.

"We're cute, huh? Do you need to take a picture of us?" As he cuddled next to Colin on the bed. Another phrase he hears from me daily.

"Jam.Jam.Jam.Jam.Jam.Jam.Jam...." A chant started in aisle 2 of Target when I mentioned we need to buy more strawberry jam. It's in aisle 4. We made it to aisle 14 before I nearly lost it and convinced him to stop.

"Mom, I have a job for you. When we get home from church, I need you to tell me what the deal is." This is a blend of 2 phrases he hears from us constantly. Anytime I need his help, I start with, "Ethan, come here, I have a job for you..." Anytime we are trying to prep him for upcoming activities, we start with, "Here's the deal, we're going to..."