9 Months!!

Today is my little (big) man's 9 month birthday! I'm getting more sad with each passing month. I don't want my baby to grow up! I will say he is so fun right now though! He's very wiggly and is wanting to move but has yet to crawl. He'll be sitting up and try to grab for a toy and will flip his body onto his stomach. He does this all.day.long. And yet, he still hasn't mastered crawling! When he is on his stomach he'll kick enough and start scooting backwards. He may just skip the crawling stage. Lily didn't crawl until she was a year old!! And she didn't walk until she was 15 months!! So, I'm thinking we just have some lazy kids around here! :)
*He weighs 22.8 lbs (only the 60%!!) and is 30.5 inches long (85%). He's huge to me, so I'm not sure how his weight and height aren't off the charts! Oh well!

*Still wearing 12-18 month clothes, but it's starting to get small!

*Sleeping through the night! Hooray! Well, as of 2 nights he's been doing this! I've been giving him a snack (rice crackers) before the last feeding of the day in hopes it would fill him up and make him sleep. But he would still wake up between 4:30 and 5:30 am! Ouch. My super smart husband said "why don't we just feed him some oatmeal baby cereal before that last feeding?" Sure. Let's try that. We've done that for the last 2 nights and the first night he slept until 7 am and this morning he slept until 8 am!! Praise the Lord! I was really hurting for sleep, but if he goes until at least 7 I feel like a new woman! Hoping these sleep habits stay this way!

*He really is the best, easy-going baby!

This boy LOVES to eat!

Chewing on his sister's toy! I promise we didn't give it to him! :)

He loves to stand against furniture-we are the ones who have to put him there though. He'll eventually pull himself up I'm just sure of it!

Such a big boy!!

Eagle Crest

The week after the 4th of July, our little family headed over to Eagle Crest with AJ's parents and sister and her husband. We do this every summer and have such a great time! We are spoiled with amazing meals that I never have to cook, coffee made every morning, and on site babysitting! :)

On the way over, she was occupied with watching Boz over and over! And holding her baby, aka Big Baby.

Snugglin' with my girl under a towel!
Grandpa Dan and Jameson

One day, Andrea and I went golfing with the boys. Well, they golfed while we drove them around in the golf carts! SO much fun to drive those things!

Grandma Barb loving on Jameson!

Sleeping by the pool-he did this daily! It's so nice having a baby who will mostly sleep anywhere!

He LOVED swimming around and splashing his hands and feet. He really liked this car too!

I love my kids!

Gotta keep my red-headed, fair skinned baby in the shade!

Grandpa and Lily having a heart to heart! :)

One night after dinner, we walked over to the golf course and practiced on a few holes. Lily LOVED running around-barefoot of course-and "helped" by holding the flags (is that what they're even called?! I'm definitely not a golfer!) Maybe she'll be a golfer someday!

Going for a walk and I'm pretty sure I only lasted 10 minutes before I couldn't carry Jameson anymore! That boy is heavy!

Auntie Andrea and Jameson

Us girls went shopping in Sisters one day and of course we had to make a stop at Sisters Coffee-it's so good!

Love those chubby cheeks!

Family bicycle ride! The kids loved riding in this trailer we borrowed from some friends. Jameson only loved it for about 10 minutes then he started crying. I'm thinking his sister had something to do with that?! It was fun though!

We went to the pool everyday. Lily was a fish! She loves swimming! And fyi, the pool was not closed like it says in the background :)

Even Jameson loved chillin' in the stroller!

Love her, squinty eyes and all!

AJ was the best dad and played with her in the pool the whole time so I could lay in the sun!

We had such a great time and look forward to it every year!

We're at Year 7 and I'm in Heaven!

7 years ago today, I married the man of my dreams and here's 7 reasons why:
*He loves the Lord and his desire to live for Him is so evident in his daily life.

*He is great at surprising me with my favorite coffee drink and will sometimes wake up before me and go get a drink and leave it right next to me on my bedside table! He even did that today!

*He makes me laugh ALL.THE.TIME.

*He LOVES our children and you can see they love him SO much too!

*He can fix anything-seriously! One time, my hair dryer broke and he took it apart, put in a new cord and made it work!

*He is great at encouraging me-especially in my walk with God.

*He is the best BBQ-er I know!!! :)

I can think of more than 7 reasons why I love him, but I don't want to make you all bored! These last 7 years have gone so fast! I can't wait to see what God has in store for us for the next 7 and 70 years! I love you AJ! At the airport coming home from our Hawaiian honeymoon. Look how tan we were! And how much of a baby I looked like! :)

At the beach probably during our first or second year of marriage. Again, such baby faces we had! And check out my cool shades!

Our sweet family-praise God for all He's done! And I'm thinking we need an updated family photo!

Random Videos

Lily started swim lessons today and has it everyday for the next 2 weeks! I'm a bit worried that it might be a very LONG 2 weeks! She did pretty good and her class is 4 kids total-Lily being the only girl! She did get bored and "tired" when she was waiting in the pool for her turn to be taught things. And she just had to tell me how tired she was by screaming loudly and then crying for ALL to hear! She said, "I'm tired of holding on!" (to the edge of the pool) and "I want to get out!" I just didn't make eye contact with her and hoped she would eventually stop! Her instructor was great and really helped her out. She eventually got over being "tired" and was enjoying the rest of the class. And really, the class is only 30 minutes long so it's the perfect amount of pool time! Although, when she was proclaiming her dissatisfaction with her pool time I looked at the clock and saw we still had 15 minutes in the class to go! I couldn't wait for it to be over! :) Here's a little video of her in her class today.

Lily's swim lessons from Amanda Acker on Vimeo.

And this last video is an oldie but a goodie! I was reading a book to Jameson and he loved all my silly animal sounds. Please ignore how stupid I sound and focus on his cuteness!!

Jameson's squeals from Amanda Acker on Vimeo.

8 Months!

Wow. 8 months. Pinch me. It's going too fast. I want it to s l o w down!!! I have no idea how much Jameson weighs since he hasn't been to the Dr. since 6 months! I should just sit him on that scale to find out! He is as pudgy as ever and I LOVE kissing his thighs, knee caps, wrists....basically, anything that has multiple rolls all over I love to kiss! He is still not crawling or really rolling for that matter. I know lots of babies who are younger and are rolling back and forth and back and forth again. But, it's really nice to leave my baby in one spot and leave the room and come back and find him in that same spot! I know he'll start moving when he wants to. And I'm just fine with him taking his sweet time!

*Wearing 12-18 month clothes!!

*Sleeping ok but not great. Lately, he's been wanting to wake up at 5am to eat and after I feed him will go back to bed. I know he can go longer, but he won't. And I'm a sucker and won't let him cry more than 3 minutes. Yes, I'm a softie!

*LOVES to eat-but we all knew this just by looking at him! I'm still making all my baby food and it's going well. Now I'm trying to figure out what kind of snack foods to feed him. He's nursing a bit less now which gives me more freedom! I'm trying to be more creative with my baby food mixtures too. I recently made pineapple/banana, pineapple/pear, and sweet potato/corn. He seems to like it all!

*LOVES his sister. He always looks for her when they're in a room together. He follows her with his eyes and lights up when she talks to him. It's so sweet. He does get mad and cry when she randomly scratches him across his face. Ugh. Still working on her! :)

*Loves his bath and cries when I take him out.

*Talks all the time.

*Grabs at people's faces all.the.time. I think he does this mostly to people he knows though. *Stares and talks to his hands. He's done this for a while, but it's so cute to hear him cooing at his hand as he holds it in front of his face. Think of someone getting engaged and holding their hand out in front of them to admire their ring. That's what he does!!

*Recently started to notice Charlie (our lab). He will just stare at him and make an "O" shape with his mouth.

He is still a happy baby and people always tell me how easy going he is-and it's true! He just goes with the flow. Even when he's super tired and doesn't seem to get a nap in (which is every time he's in the nursery at church! Must be too much going on!) he's still a happy baby-with an occasional cry. We love our little man!

He LOVES the swing! We recently inherited my aunt and uncle's old swing set that their kids had outgrown. They were so generous in giving it to us! Lily is on that thing all day!! It's awesome! This was taken the day we got it and all of us were anxious to use it. I don't sit on the swing much though-the whole structure creaks! Just for kids I guess! Anyway, anytime Jameson is on it he just laughs and coos! So sweet. And I promise to put pictures up of the whole structure with Lily playing on it!

Outside lots these days. Need shady spots for my fair skinned, red headed baby!

Outside again-and in the shade! This time in his jumperoo. He loves it.

Love this picture. I'm so excited to use this wagon now that Jameson can sit up by himself!

First night in his high chair (this picture was taken a little bit ago though). I'm pretty sure we got this out way too late, but it's great now!

4th of July

I will start by saying that I can't wait until my kids are older when we can stay out late and enjoy fireworks! Ever since Lily was born I'm pretty sure we've been in bed and asleep by 11pm! Oh well :) We're cool like that! Anyway, the Acker's (AJ's folks) had an awesome 4th of July bbq with TONS of food and family and friends! It was so nice to eat, chat, and relax. I just wished it had been a bit warmer! Grandpa Dan did buy some fireworks to do with Lily, but that girl is so scared of loud noises she held her hands over her ears the whole time.

See?! But smiling so sweetly with her Auntie Andrea!

She later sat with Dan while AJ lit some fireworks, and again had her hands over her ears and then she wanted Dan's hands to cover her hands over her ears! After about 5 fireworks she said she was done. Maybe next year she'll be into it more! She did do some sparklers though!

Some of the boys-my dad, new brother-in-law Kevin, and AJDan lighting some of the fireworksLily playing with some sweet girls- Sophia and Eloise in the background!Brother and Sister with Lily MaeThis girl rarely shows affection to me anymore, so any chance she gives me a hug on her own I just soak it all up! She was squeezing my neck so hard too! Luckily I had my camera ready so I can capture that she really does love me! :)And sweet J baby playing with a necklace! He loved that thing. Let's just call it some beads on a string instead of a necklace. Makes it sound a bit more manly huh?

Crawl 'n Slide

Lily got a slip 'n slide for her birthday (which was in February!) and we've been anxiously waiting to use it! The weather has FINALLY been nice enough lately, so we put out the slip 'n slide the other day. Lily can be a dare devil at times, but she's usually pretty cautious about things at first!Instead of running and sliding on this new toy, she wanted to crawl!

And she made it to the end! Jameson wanted to try it out too! I love his chubby little ankles!

Then they just wanted to sit on the slide and play in the water. Jameson LOVED it! In fact, when I picked him up to go inside, he started crying. He was having too much fun trying to grab at that water!

We had so much fun using it and look forward to many more times playing with it! Hopefully, by the end of the summer Lily will be wanting to actually slide instead of crawl! ;)