10 Month Old Reed

Reed is 10 months old.  He is 29.5" long, and in the 75.8th %.  His weight is 21 lbs 6 oz, which is 72.6%.   He's still cruising along furniture but not really trying to stand without holding on yet.  His hair is growing, getting a little fuzzy and a lot blonde.

He's still such a good, sweet boy.  His personality is fantastic.  He has started doing things solely to make us all laugh, like ridiculous screams and then belly laughs, and repeat.  Or his scrunchy nose thing where he sucks air in and out of his nose as fast as he can.

The fake laughing has for sure started now too.  (My apologies-I still forget to turn the phone a lot of the time)

Doesn't take much to turn into a real laugh though.

He thinks he's one of the big kids.  

 His new favorite thing is getting rides on his goldfish floatie.  Any time he spots it he crawls to it as fast as he can and sits himself down in the middle and just waits to be pulled around.  Someone will nearly always do it happily.

 

He loves to play ball-more than any of our other kids did at that age.  He'll pick up a ball and hold it out in front of him, balanced on his palm, and then let it roll off of his fingertips.  Then he does his superfast crawl after it, and does it all over again.  Or if he's outside, he crawls all over the yard, kind of "dribbling" the soccer ball with his hands/arms as he crawls.  He's actually really good at it.  Ha.

He really loves to be outside.

 He'll crawl to the back sliding glass door and stand up against it, banging his hands on it and crying for me to let him out.  If his siblings go out to swing and they shut the door before he can get there, his heart IS BROKEN.

Taking care of him when we're at home is a workout for sure.  He is way more active than his siblings were, and wants me either carrying him around the house, or close to him but not holding(restricting) him unless he's tired and/or hungry.   He wants to be free to explore, inside or outside, but that's unbearable for me because EVERY two seconds he's trying to grab something to shove in his mouth, so I'm spending all day picking him up, setting him down, pulling things out of his hands, picking him back up when he gets mad at me because I won't let him eat toys, setting him back down when he's squirming to get free and explore some more, and so on.  Out in public, he's happy to ride along on my hip, smiling and flirting with people.  He loves everybody, but especially his family.

His favorite times of day are the morning, especially waking up his siblings, or having them wake HIM up.

....mealtimes...

 ...and when daddy gets home.  He always gives him really sweet hugs for a bit.

Then leans back and gives him a few loving swats to the face, and then some more hugs.

It's so sweet to see.  I'm hardly ever away from him, so I don't get to experience this kind of thing too often.  One exception is softball.  He's usually very happy to greet me when I get home from a game.  Or if they come to watch, he gets either excited or frantic, depending on his mood, when he sees me on the field.  

I can't believe this guy didn't even exist not too long ago, and now he is such an important part of our family, and basically runs the show around here.

Some Recent Projects

Cason is still set on a How to Train Your Dragon party for his birthday.  I've been gradually getting him little gifts for a few weeks, instead of doing all our shopping right before his birthday.  One thing I wanted to find was a stuffed Toothless.  The ones I could find were either cheap looking or HORRID looking.  So, since making stuffed animals is my favorite kind of sewing, I decided to make one.  At first I thought I'd make up my own pattern, which is fun, but sometimes takes a few attempts before I can get it right.  I did a search to see if anyone had done it and posted pictures, and I came across a tutorial that looked good.  Here it is in case anyone is interested.  It was pretty well done, and fairly easy to follow.

I worked on it during the weekends and a few evenings for a few weeks.  Cason wants to be Hiccup for Halloween, and for Reed to be Toothless, so I just told him I was working on Reed's costume, and made most of the stuffed animal right in front of Cason without him ever knowing.  As the time came for stuffing parts of him, I would sneak off to sew in my room when Cason was busy with something and not likely to come looking for me.  

 

I just about made it, but toward the end I started to wonder if he had suspicions, and then he walked in and caught me when I was sewing the wings on-my last step, dang it! So....he got his main present pretty dang early.  I didn't see the point in making him wait a few weeks when he already knows exactly what it is. 

I was pretty happy with how it turned out, although there are a few things I wish I could improve or change, like his prosthetic tail fin.  I somehow, even after double checking, made it on the wrong side.  Arrgh.  I'd also make the spikes look nicer and make the wings a little more even (one is slightly farther forward).  He's also slightly lazy eyed.  Ha.  Buuuuut I'd have to practically remake him to fix all of those things, and they're not a big enough deal for that.  Cason seems quite happy with him as is, anyway.

He even carried him to Veronica's house with us the other day.

He's not the only fan, either.

Speaking of crafting, Paige and I had been wanting to try polymer clay, so I finally bought us a few colors.  We've made a few things, and we all really liked it.  Paige and I both made koi for our first ones, and I was so impressed with hers.  She may have found a talent.  Hers is the chubbier one.

 Cason and Neely were both really good too!  They both made pandas.  I know I took pictures of Cason's, but I can't find them.  :(  Here is Neely's:

I had to try a Toothless too, of course.  I found a tutorial for this too, and it was fun to use, but I may have to try my own version next time.

Bird's eye:

Now I get to try and clean up the house that always ends up a horrible mess when I'm feeling crafty.

Last Days of our Trip

We ended up leaving for this trip a day late, when the alternator in our car went out.  So in the end we decided to stay an extra day, to get some good family days in.  On Sunday morning we woke up and had a slow start-eating breakfast, cuddling and playing in the comfy hotel beds,

and finding a place to wash some of our clothes, since we ended up staying that extra day.  We eventually went to the beach again.  I regretted having so much stuff to carry the first day at the beach, so this time we didn't have phones and cameras with us.  I kind of wish I had some pictures from this trip, but at the same time it was nice not worrying about taking them, and just enjoying ourselves.  Jess hung out with Reed and Cason up on the beach a lot this time, letting me do a little more searching for shells, which is my favorite thing.  I saw a starfish and couldn't quite catch it because the water was a little choppy.  :(  I found a little sand dollar, but it ended up breaking.  So I had no treasures to bring home.  Neely and Paige liked searching with me, and Cason would too, here and there, but mostly he was into his sandcastles again.  For a while Jess took the big two out into the waves, and I walked in the shallow water carrying Reed and holding hands with Neely.  It was nice and relaxing.  We saw quite a few fish, including a couple of these, right next to our feet.  I thought Neely might freak out because it was like a foot away from us, but it was pretty much the same color as the sand and she never saw it when I pointed it out.  Probably better that way.  :)

That night we tried Pieology, since our kids love pizza so much.  We all liked it, and I have good memories of our little beach kids eating their pizzas and dancing in the empty restaurant (once we got a little chilly and moved inside)

We also ran into a Target, where I tried to sneak gifts for Cason's upcoming birthday into the cart without him noticing, and then went back to our hotel for bed.  

In the morning we had another delicious breakfast, in beautiful weather...

...and headed for home. 

We were greeted home by a pretty crazy and lovely rainstorm.

Day 3-The Beach/My Birthday

The third day in California, we woke up and enjoyed our comfy room, 

and the view for a little while.

It was my birthday, and Jess had looked up some breakfast places because I love me some breakfast.  So we tried a little cafe, and it was SO good.  We sat out at a table on the sidewalk, the weather was perfect, and our food was awesome.  We had the nicest little older lady as our waitress, and she kept complimenting us on how good our kids were.  That's always nice to hear.

The juice was the best part of the meal. We had orange juice, and Neely had apple, and both types were clearly made fresh there.  SO good.

Paige can eat as much as most adults when it comes to pizza or pancakes.  So instead of the kids pancakes we got her the "One Big Buttermilk Pancake" off the regular menu. I didn't realize they meant one BIG pancake.

She made a good dent in it anyway.

Then we drove around for a short bit, and headed for the beach to meet the Cassons.  Once we found a parking place, changed everyone into swimsuits, found a spot on the beach, and got sunscreen on all the kids, we had a good time.  :)  

Paige and Cason have both been to the beach, but the last time Cason went he was just over a year old.  Paige mostly LOVED the waves, and getting crushed by them with Jess.  Cason went back and forth between the waves and building sandcastles with Liam.  

 

Those boys were pretty cute.

 

 

 

Liam seemed to really like the sandcastles.  I somehow didn't see much of Colin at the beach, so I'm not sure what his favorite part was.

 Neither Neely or Reed had ever been.  Neely liked it, but didn't seem overly impressed.  

She sort of walked happily back and forth between the water and the sandcastles, never getting fully into either one. 

 Eventually she fell asleep on the blanket and had a little nap. 

 Reed loved the sand. 

He spent some time gazing at the ocean when he got sleepy.

 

 ...and then he was out.

 

 

With his sandy lashes.