On the go

Yes, Holly has turned into a climber. She can now successfully crawl (instead of just dragging herself around) and pull up on things. Usually it's to get at Elliott's Lego's or one of our iPhones. Just outside of her bedroom door is a nightlight. This has been a constant draw for the past month. She's like a moth to the flame and can't keep away from it. But, now she has discovered the stairs - across the hallway from their room. We will have to install the baby gates again.

Holly will do laps around our coffee table. She things it is hysterical.

In other news with Holly, she has been teething. I hope that and a combination of being a bit sick is the reason she has been sleeping so poorly. On Friday night she ate 5 times between 9pm and 5am. Needless to say, I was tired on Saturday morning! Last night she at at midnight and then slept until 7:15am, yay!! She has finally decided that baby food is good. She will happily eat 1/2 a banana in one sitting. She is a big fan of fruits and we are slowly working on vegetables. She has two teeth, you can see them both here.

Elliott started soccer classes this past week. Dan went with him and said that Elliott did pretty well. He listened and participated well, something he had a rough time doing at swimming lessons. Dan took Elliott out for donuts after his class and he was thrilled. Here he is posing for me once they got home.

Elliott doesn't always want to pose nicely for me when I'm taking pictures. Usually he tries to duck his head so that I can't get a good one of his face. Often when I ask him to smile this is what I get.

I decided to let him take some pictures - with the assistance of the tripod. We now have quite a few of his Ninjago legos. It did help him with wanting to pose though. He really wanted me to take these.

Next week is Spring Break and we are excited to play with his Portland cousins. Elliott calls Cameron his "super best friend". Brooke and Grace are only his "best friends". He likes to tell us Monster stories that often involve being at Grandmas house (she has a basement and he was a bit scared of the sewing machine when the lights were off) with Cam, B & G. Dan and are I discussing the possibility of sending him to preschool next year. It seems really early, at age 3. But, I think he would do really well with the structure of it and with learning and trying new things. We'll see what happens there.

Holly - 8 months

Holly was making noise in her crib this morning so I went in to check on her, and she was standing up.  This is the first time she has fully pulled herself up.  We'll have to drop the crib so she doesn't try to get out.  She's also doing better at crawling on her knees, but still would rather army crawl.  She really wants to walk and will straighten her legs and start walking when you try to set her down to sit.  

Holly is eating solid foods much better now.  She really likes being fed oatmeal and the frozen fruit purees Wendy made last summer.  She also is good at hand-feeding with Mum-Mums (rice biscuit things) and these puffs that look like cereal that dissolve in her mouth.  I'll have to ask Wendy for a weight update, because I think she usually weighs her each month for the blog.

 

Elliott is still very much into Mario, but has also become obsessed with Ninjago.  Ninjago is a type of lego where you put the lego figures onto tops and they spin into each other to battle.  Kai is his favorite Ninjago character:
 

 

Elliott is currently in his second round of swimming lessons and will be starting soccer in a week.  Elliott has gone to two Timbers games with me so far this season, and he likes them for about 1/2 the time he is there.  The other half I let him play Game Boy, eat Reese's Pieces or play around at my feet.  Holly actually fell asleep at the home opener right during a Kris Boyd goal celebration.  If you know how loud it gets after a goal, that should be impossible.

 

Elliott knows what dreaming is now and has talked to me about it a few times.  He has apparently had bad dreams and funny dreams.  He told me that when I tell him stories at night he can picture them on the ceiling like a dream.  I thought that was pretty neat.  He also really likes Shel Silverstein's poems, so poems after books has been added to his nighttime routine.