Max at 8.5 Months

8.5 months is a strange milestone, but I've got to do this while I'm thinking about it!  Our sweet Max is nearly 9 months old.  I can hardly believe it.  I'm seriously in love with this little guy.  He's at such a wonderful stage.  He really is a great. easy baby these days.  He's just so happy.  Some things to note about our sweetheart:

• He LOVES food.  This is such a wonderful experience after dealing with Andy, who had the hardest time learning how to eat.  Max will eat virtually anything we put in front of him.  He loves pureed things, finger foods, and pieces of anything we're eating.  His favorite pureed foods are sweet potatoes, oatmeal cereal, apple chicken, and macaroni & cheese.  He also loves puffs, cheerios, bread, croissants (who doesn't love croissants?), pretzels, graham crackers, pieces of turkey, green smoothie, grapes, strawberries, bananas, melons...really, anything we've given him.  He used to eat his fruit out of one of those mesh things, but he's moved on now.  I give him two solid meals for breakfast and dinner.  I used to feed him some solids for lunch too, but I'm trying to cut back on how much solid food I give him because he was losing interest in nursing.  Cutting out the solids for lunch has helped, but I'm still having the hardest time keeping him interested in nursing.  I have to nurse in the dark, in his room, and make sure he can't hear anyone, especially Andy.  Max just wants to play! 
• He thinks Andy is hilarious.  And Andy's always trying new things to make him laugh.  
• He is so close to crawling.  He turns all around, moves backward, rocks on his knees...I feel like we're a couple weeks away.  (Is it horrible that I'm kind of dreading once I have two mobile kids?)
• He's very fidgety.  He just wants to move.  He's also a professional grabber.  You think you've placed something out of his reach, and then BAM!  He's fast and has a long reach. 
• He loves to be held.  And if you're holding him, he loves to get really close, stare intently into your eyes, and use his pointer finger to explore your mouth.  
• He's still a total mama's boy, and I love it.  He lights up and starts bouncing/kicking like crazy when I come in the room.  
• He's very social.  But I feel like it's in a different way than Andy is.  I don't think he'll be saying hi to everyone at the store like Andy does, but I think he values relationships and spending time with people.  He loves attention, making eye contact, smiling at people, and connecting with them.  
• He has the sweetest giggle.  I love tickling him (he's very ticklish) so I can hear it. 
• He loves when I give him kisses.  
• At night we coo back and forth to each other, and it's just about my favorite part of the day.  And after his feeding right before bed, he'll lay in my arms, relax, and cuddle.  He won't do that the rest of the day (too much to look at!), so I really soak it in.  
• He's chubby!  Not sure of his weight/height right now, but his legs are deliciously thick. 
• Fantastic napper.  He takes two naps, each is about two hours long.  I just set him in his crib and he falls asleep without a peep.  Still not great at sleeping at night.  He sleeps from 7-7:30 or so, but still wakes up 2-3 times to eat.  I need to eliminate at least one of those feedings, but I'm hesitant because he seems to nurse so much better at night than during the day, and I'm already worried he's not nursing enough.    
• He loves the pool and the sun.  It's heaven for him.  
• He's wearing 12 month clothes. 
• He loves peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake, etc.  

It's hard to capture the sweetness that is Max into words.  But we love, love, love this sweet person.  If I'm having a hard day, he's sure to be the one to lift my spirits.  How grateful we are that he's part of our family!

Swinging solo for the first time!

Amazing lashes and cutest little bum.

Sweet potatoes!!!

Bay Area Trip

Cameron and I just took a wonderful trip to the bay area for a friend's wedding.  We spent four days there.  We had such a great time!  We brought Max (he's still nursing) and left Andy with Cameron's parents, who generously made sure Andy had the time of his life while we were away.  We almost didn't go because I don't particularly love traveling with young babies, but we are so glad we ended up going! It turns out Max is a chill little travel companion, which is *only slightly* different than I'd describe Andy at that age. :)

Instead of my typical travel log, I'll do a top ten list of our favorite things about our trip.  In no particular order, here we go:

1. Spending time catching up with Cameron's friends was so wonderful.  I keep thinking about how lucky he is to have such a great group of friends who have remained so close.  Most of them still live right in the area and still spend lots of time together.  We had a fun catch up with Brendan and met his girlfriend Brianna, who is so wonderful.  He treated us to a sushi lunch in Sebastopol, where Cameron grew up.  We spent lots of time with everyone at Sarah and Joe's beautiful wedding.  (It really was stunning--in the woods at a beautiful garden.)  We all met up for breakfast one morning at a favorite place of their's in Occidental, Howard's.  I feel like they all have such interesting lives and do such a variety of things--it's so fun to catch up and hear about everyone's lives.  
   

   

   Cameron and Brendan, friends since 5th grade!

2. Cameron grew up in the bay area, but he still hasn't done some of the typical tourist things!  He hadn't been to Muir Woods to see the redwoods, so we had a nice morning walking the trail there.  It's super popular and crowded because it's so close to San Francisco, but seriously so beautiful.  He also had never walking across the Golden Gate Bridge, so we took a very windy walk across a portion of it.  
   

   

   A very foggy, windy day on the bridge.

3. We ended up going to Stinson Beach for a couple hours.  Neither of us had been there, and it was just perfect.  A beautiful, sunny day, really relaxing, Max enjoyed squishing his toes in the sand, we found a yummy sandwich shop and ate in the park, watched some surfing.  It was such a nice afternoon.
   
   
   
4. We stayed in the most beautiful house ever.  Seriously.  It was in San Rafael, just a few minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge.  We found it on airbnb, and I think we'll stay there whenever we come in town.  It was right at the top of a hill and had the most beautiful views in every direction.  The pool and hot tub were so gorgeous.  Our room had two walls that were all windows, with stunning views.  And a private deck too.  It even ended up that there was a little closet off the bathroom that was perfect for Max's pack 'n play.  It was just perfect!  The hosts, Jonathan and Alyssa, were the sweetest  people.  They were so accommodating and were fun to chat with.  Plus, they had just moved here from England a year ago, so I loved talking with them about all things English.  

   

   The pool area.  I could stay here forever.

5. We loved spending one-on-one time with Max.  I feel like Max is easily overshadowed by Andy's big personality, so it was neat to spend so much time with him alone.  We both felt like he brought a special presence to our trip.  I feel like he's an adventurous little person, and he enjoyed seeing and experiencing so many new things.  He seemed so happy, despite missing virtually every nap.  I think it was especially nice for he and Cameron to bond, since it seems like I'm usually helping Max and Cameron's usually helping with Andy.  Like I said, Max was just SO good and surpassed all expectations for handling such a busy trip.  He was a little worn out from being in the car by the last day, but was really, really, really good most of the time.  

   

   Max got a little tired at the wedding. 

6. When we first flew in, we spent the afternoon in San Francisco at Union Square.  Most times when we visit we spend our time on the Pier, so it was fun to spend time in a different area.  Such a beautiful, vibrant city!
   
   
7. We had the most beautiful evening in Sausalito.  We ate at Scoma's, a favorite restaurant of ours.  Walked along the pier.  Admired the view of San Francisco.  It was such a great night.  We always love visiting Sausalito.  
   
   
8. Wow, we had some great food.  Franchesca's for lunch, Scoma's, a great sandwich place in Stinson (thanks to yelp), Screamin' Mimi's Ice Cream and sushi (in Sebastopol), Howard's, crab sandwiches and clam chowder at Bodega Bay, and a yummy pizza place in Berkeley.  
9. We had a fun couple of hours in Berkeley before we had to catch our flight home.  It's always great to partake of the quirkiness there.  We ate at a great pizza place we'd just happened upon. 
10. We had a great afternoon enjoying Bodega Bay.  It was super busy because it was such a sunny, warmish day.  (Which, by my standards, was still super windy and cold and I have no idea how anyone got in that water).  We went to Salmon Creek and Bodega Head.  So beautiful.  I always love seeing the views there. We had crab sandwiches and clam chowder at our favorite place at Bodega Head.
    
    

And, to keep it real, some "funny" moments of our trip:

1. Nursing.  Max won't use a cover any more and also unlatches a million times each feeding.  This made for lots of exciting nursing experiences.  I think my personal favorite was nursing right in the middle of Muir woods, where I thought I'd chosen a conspicuous location, but ended up being in a spotlight, visible to hundreds (okay, it only felt like hundreds) from multiple trails.  Also included is when I nursed in the brides dressing room, witnessing an argument between her sister and her sister's husband.
2. Walking out to the pool area in the house we stayed in to find the other couple (who we hadn't met yet) doing things they probably should have reserved for their private room.  Let's just say the rest of our interactions with them were more than a little awkward--we weren't exactly exchanging contact info by the end.  
3. When Cameron lost our parking ticket at a parking garage in San Francisco.  We didn't realize until we were almost to the place you pay, and we were frantically rummaging through everything trying to find it.  We thought we'd have to spend our life savings to pay an outrageous lost ticket fee.  Lucky for us, Max had impeccable timing with a giant screaming fit, and the parking attendant took pity on us.  
4. When we thought we'd try getting Ghiradelli Ice Cream at a different location than the normal Ghiradelli Square location--we ended up in the basement food court of a mall.  Nothing like spending $20 on ice cream while enjoying the overwhelming scent of asian barbecue. 
5. We ate at two nicer "sit down" places our first day and quickly learned our lesson.  Max's pterodactyl screech, as we call it, didn't quite fit in.  
6. We got a little confused about the wedding's starting time, and so we literally walked in as they were coming down the isle.  Oops.  
7. Our already super late return flight ended up being delayed, so we didn't get in to Salt Lake until about 1:00 AM.  And because it takes us forever to go anywhere with a baby, I think we were literally the last ones out of the airport.  We finally got home about 2 AM.  
   

Such a great trip!  I'm majorly missing it every day.

Andy's Birthday Celebrations

Andy was lucky enough to have a few different birthday celebrations!
First, we did a very low-key little party at a local park with a few Texas friends.  Andy loved playing with Charlie and Addy, eating cupcakes, playing with bubbles, and running around. (Pictured: the Texas babies at the party.)

Yes, this is the best picture I got of his guests.  Andy refused to be in a picture by this point.  Throwing a tantrum about something.  

The mama guests. (So glad Jen was in town!)

Our birthday boy with the beautiful lashes pictured with his orange cupcakes.  (Orange is his fav. color.)

 

That night, we went to the Little America in Salt Lake for some swimming and dinner with Cameron's parents, Brendan, and G.G. (Pictured: Max LOVES to swim.)

 

On his actual birthday, we had the house decorated with streamers and balloons when he woke up, which he loved.  He opened gifts from us.  He'd been saying he wanted a scooter for his birthday for weeks.  It was sitting out for him that morning...and he refused to touch it.  Still hasn't really been interested in it.  Ha! :) We went swimming with some of my high school friends that day, which was so fun.  That night, we went to McDonald's to have an ice cream cone and play on the play place.  All in all, he had a great day! 

 

We had a fun party on Sunday with family.  My parents, Cameron's parents, Abby, Rachel, and Brendan all came.  Andy had a blast!  He loved his cake and especially his ice cream.  He was SO excited opening presents.  With every little tear in the paper he'd say, "WOAH! So cool!" etc.  Even when he had no idea what it was.  Greg and Kathy got him a plasma car, my parents got him a T-ball set and a slip 'n slide, Rachel got him Candyland, and G.G. (who couldn't attend) got him a marble track that he adores.  It was such a fun party!  So fun to celebrate our darling Andy with those who love him most. 

He loves this thing.  And he's really good.  (Must get it from his mom.) 

Max loves Aunt Rachel.  

This is Andy at the end of the party.  I'd say he had good time. 

Most excited present opener award.

Trying to figure out the slip 'n slide.