8 months

Houston, we have forward crawling!

Big girl continues on her way (much too fast)toward toddlerhood now at 8 months. Most recently, she figured out how to move her little tank forward instead of backward in circles. She sits without the safety net, also known as the boppy, to keep her from tipping over backwards. She's trying to pull up on everything and really enjoys standing. I really think I could make a lot of money making an infant helmet notmeant for reshaping a kid's head (because they already have those) but for protection from developing motor skills.Adrienne tends to do a few tumbles a week as she overestimates her new found mobility.

Let's see, she's starting to make a run for her brother's toys, specifically his match box cars and the cars' garage. I certainlyforesee some sharing struggles in the near future - oy. Luke is still Adrienne's favorite entertainer and she just loves to hang out with him. Hopefully this is not just a phase.

Adrienne is eating table foods these days, she pretty much likes everything! She loves drinking ice water. We don't do juice in our house mainly because there are mostly empty calories in juice and because quite frankly, nobody here really loves it enough to buy it.

Well that's about it for now since I'll need to do a 9 month post rather soon :)

Lukey B Baby

I think I need to dedicate an entire post to Luke as there is just so much going on in his life these days! Because it is winter in upstate NY, we try to do as much as we can to get out of the house before we (and Luke) go stir crazy. On Saturday mornings, Luke heads off to gymnastics at Eagle Gymnastics center which is conveniently located about 5 minutes from our house. Each Saturday morning, the parent who is lucky enough to accompany Luke to the gym gets a real show and is sure to come home with some "Luke" stories. For example, last weekend, Matt was able to come home and tell me how Luke figured out how to beat the system of waiting in line for his turn on the vault. As it turns out, if Luke runs down the runway, jumps on the spring board and jumps just straight up and down and back onto the springboard (not onto the vault mat/pit), the teacher will send him back down the runway to do over. And this keeps happening over and over and over again until the teacher has figured out Luke's little game. On the floor exercise, an obstacle course is usually set up for the kids - we've noticed that Luke just skips the things he doesn't want to do and jumps his spot in line, again, beating the system. I'm going to chalk this up to Luke being a free-thinker as opposed to a rule-disregarder.

And what's even funnier than Luke's line avoidance, is his reaction to the other kids in the class. Luke totally gives a few of them the side eye! There is one little girl in particular who happened to be wearing a green sparkly leotard 2 classes ago and she pitched a fit in front of the whole gym - the kids weren't going in the foam pit at the end of class like they had the week before. Well ever since, she's known as "the green girl, the one havin' a fit." You know, because Luke's never thrown a fit before.

In addition to his weekly gymnastics class, we are often seen floating around the YMCA pool on the weekends. Well, when I say we, I really mean Luke and Matt. Luke is quite the little guppie, bobbing under the water and wiggling all around. He still likes to play "pock-a-posy" or ring around the rosy as the rest of us call it. When we all fall down, Luke dunks himself under water. The last time I went swimming with him we played so many times that I got dizzy.

Luke's other favorite inside winter activities include scooter/cozy coupe races down the hallway, jammin' on his guitar with daddy, baking (specifically brownies with G-ma and cupcakes with mimi), painting, playing with his blocks, harassing the cat, acrobatics on the couch, and last but not least, playing his drum as loud as he possibly can.

And as for outside winter activities, sledding is the clear favorite, but he also enjoys snow shoveling, trash removal and kicking snow. I do have to mention this one funny story from last weekend. Matt and Luke were heading out to get a pizza for dinner (the in-house cook doesn't work on the weekends) and Luke had a brownie that he was taking with him as a treat in the car. Luke went around the car to the door where his carseat is located and when Matt came around after him, he found Luke face first down in the snow kicking his feet. Apparently he didn't use his hands to break his fall because he was still holding onto the brownie with both hands when Matt picked him up. Clearly the boy is dedicated to his brownies.

And here is the big man himself!