Oxford Family Fun Day

Oxford (the boys' daycare) hosted a family fun day at a local park today.  A lot of their teachers and friends were there including Parker's girlfriend, Ms. Connie!

She seriously refers to Parker as her boyfriend and though she doesn't work in his room, she probably feeds him half his bottles/meals and he spends countless hours in the office with her.  Parker is definitely a big hit with all the teachers.  Dad tried to get ice cream from the Brewster's truck and was refused because he didn't have "sweet cheeks" with him.

We spend the afternoon playing on the play ground...

Running around with friends...

 and of course wrestling with the boys!

 There were all sorts of activities for the kids, both boys had fun with the bubbles...

 And Carter showed some mad skills at the obstacle course!

 That's his girlfriend Audrey following close behind on the balance beam.

Parker was a little jealous of all the attention the camera was giving Carter so he took matters into his own hands (literally).

 So mom took him on a train ride...

 And he had a blast!

Unfortunately Carter was hysterical that we went on the train (he only wanted his family to watch).  So we decided we had enough family fun and it was time to go home.  

Parker at 9 Months

Parker has been outside the belly for 274 days (quite a bit more than the 243 days he was in but that 9 month thing doesn't really work for us!).  

He has really grown up a lot on the past month.  He has started crawling, he pulls himself to his knees and tries to pull himself to standing, sometimes more successfully than others.  

He babbles quite a bit and is getting much better at self feeding.  We have started giving him a sippy cup of water throughout the day and he loves it!

Parker is definitely growing up and while it makes me sad to see the baby phase coming to an end, I'm excited for what's to come! 

Parker's favorite thing in the world remains his big brother.

He could hang out with Carter all day smiling and giggling while lapping up a never ending supply of wet kisses and bear hugs! 

 

Nine Month Rundown:

• Solid Food:  Purees are moving out, solids and chunks are in.  Favorites are blueberries, strawberries, carrots and whatever Carter is eating!
• Bottles/Nursing:  4-5 times a day.  Definitely starting to prefer food to milk.  
• Diapers:  size 2 during the day and 3 at night
• Teeth:  Two and working on two more. 
• Noises:  Babbling really picked up this month... dada, wahwah, hi, anything with an "ah" sound
• Clothes:  Combination of 6 and 9 months
• Measurements:  weight - 17lbs 7 oz (7th %); height - 27.5" (24th %); head circumference - 17.7 cm (41st %)
• Likes: Other people laughing, having his toes eaten,  being tickled, being held, his big brother, kisses from the dogs.
• Dislikes: Having his diaper changed, not getting food when he wants it, not being held in the middle of the night.

Weekly Recap

Parker (8 months)

Parker's top teeth are starting to make their presence known.  I don't think they will pop through soon but you can see the bulge in his gums.  He is working on perfecting his army crawl and definitely likes to babble.  

Carter (2 years - 3 months)
Carter's favorite activity this week is singing.  He likes to break out in song throughout the day.  He even sings himself to sleep at night and will clap and say "yea" what he is done.  When Parker cries he will go over and sing to him.

Carter is getting more into pretend play and will make himself a "snack" and share it with the rest of the family.  Fortunately our healthy child likes to pretend to make apples and oranges.

Continuing the funny toddler antics theme... Colin typically leaves for work before the boys wake up in the morning.  So when mom goes into get Carter, when he doesn't see dad he will say: "Dada not at home.  Dada at work."  Lately he has been asking what dad is doing at work and mom will say he had to go to a meeting.  So Carter has decided he wants to go to a meeting too.  Carter's meeting sounds way more fun than the ones I usually have!  He has his meetings at school and likes to invite his friends: Ava, Audrey, Emmett and Jake.  I'm not sure what they will discuss but I'm sure they could create world peace ;)

Here are a few Carter pictures from this week.

Wearing his baseball hat with dad.  Yes... not sure where that came from.

Loving his new train set!

Visitors from the Wisconsin

Mom headed to the beach which meant the men of the house were flying solo in Atlanta... or were they?  Thursday morning Grandma showed up and brought guests, Oma and Opa (Carter and Parker's Great Grandparents West) came down as well.  We started our extended weekend with the West side of the family at one of Oma and Opa's favorite past haunts, the Waffle House at I-75N and Wade Green Road in Ackworth Georgia.  Needless to say, Carter was ecstatic to be at "Wahee House" (as he calls it) and Parker had a great time to.  Soon though we were headed home where Carter spotted a toy that Grandma brought down... A GeoTracks Train set... this was an instant hit and he has been playing with it daily ever since.  The train running through the tunnel always seems to get his attention.

Even Opa got down on the ground a number of times to play with Carter and his train.  Being the son of a real train conductor and avid train aficionado, Opa was very impressed with the cog wheel the train used to move around the track.

When we were at the house and not playing, we were watching a good bit of the Olympics and the PGA Championship

Carter sure liked watching the major events with everyone at the house.

But most of the time at home was spent playing

Parker also continued to work on his solid foods intake going to town on blueberries, strawberries, and puffs all weekend

In addition to the fun at home, we took the whole gang on a big trip to the aquarium.  Albeit a bit busy (it was the last day of summer for most metro Atlanta schools) all had a great time.

Although Carter seems to have been looking the wrong way in front of the big tank of Belugas (those Fruit Loops are very tasty).

Carter and Parker had a great time with Oma and Opa, it was great to have four generations of the West family together and to share our home and the new Atlanta attractions (since they moved back to Wisconsin) with them.  We look forward to visiting them again in Wisconsin soon!

Oma and Opa left early on Saturday, on Sunday we decided to visit even more of our friends at the Zoo.  Parker was very excited and assumed his prone animal watching position in his side of the stroller.

Carter, meanwhile, was right up on the fences with Grandma and Grandpa taking in the animal sights and informing his Grandparents of the name and color of each animal we saw.  He has become an expert Zoo tour guide and knows which animals are just around the corner as you walk.

Carter has now taken a great interest in the Parakeet Aviary.  We quickly gave him a feed stick and he and his Grandparents were off to find hungry birds.

This nice little yellow fellow was kind enough to oblige Carter

Not to be left out, Parker got lots of personal time with both Grandpa...

and Grandma as we toured the Zoo.

We spent a great morning at the Zoo and didn't leave till 1:00pm (well into both Parker and Carter's nap window) as everyone was having a great time (Parker did start to get tired towards the end, but come the ride home, he was still his smiley self)!

We had a great time with all our visitors and their assistance at home was greatly appreciated by an exhausted Dad at the end of the weekend.

Till next time!

Weekly Recap

Parker (8 months)
Parker had a fun week playing with hats...

It's pretty easy to make him smile!  He is enjoying more activity and mobility which means lots of tickles from dad...

He loves to stand and is showing interest in walking when you hold his hands.  He has started wiggling and rocking back and forth when sitting or being held.  He can scoot backwards on his bottom and I've caught him army crawling a few times when he didn't know I was watching.  But his preference is for mom/dad to carry him around!

He is eating more varieties of table food and will refuse the pureed stuff on occasion.  He isn't very good at feeding himself though but that makes Madie/Brie very happy!

He likes to "talk" and his favorite words are da-da and wa-wa.

Carter (2 years - 3 months)
Captain Carter had a fun week being the big brother.  He loves watching the Olympics and imitating the sports.  It's nice to have such an exciting, physical activity for him.

And when the Olympics weren't on, a good tickle from Mom/Dad was a sure fire way to get the giggles out.

Brothers

Per usual, lots of our week revolves around the boys playing.  Usually, Carter likes to join Parker in his crib in the morning but this week things were reversed.

Carter must have been in a sharing mood because he also invited all his stuffed animals to join him.

Carter actually picked them all up and put them in the crib.  He insisted on sleeping with all of them for several days.  We have slowly been trying to remove some of the larger ones so Carter doesn't use them as stepping stools to climb out.

Parker loved all the excitement even if he was stuck in baby jail!

The rest of the week was spend with typical brother behavior.  Lots of hugs/tackles...

giggles, playing, some sharing and Carter's latest obsession taking care of the "baby".  He likes to change his diaper, stop his crying and feed him.  Unfortunately for Parked, the food isn't always edible.

Out little guys sure do love each other!

Carter at 2-1/4

Here's a quick update on what Carter is up to at 2-1/4.

His schedule has been very consistent for the year.  He wakes up around 7, takes a nap around 12 for 2 hours and goes to bed at 8.  He fits in 3 meals and 2 snacks and lots of physical activity in between.  He loves school and definitely comes home with something new he has learned each week.

His latest obsessions are singing songs, toy cars, the Olympics, stickers, talking on the phone, taking care of Parker and being a typical toddler.  He loves to get his way but he has a very sweet side to him.

He weighs around 27lbs and is getting close to 3' tall.  We have started moving him to 3T shirts and PJs, bottoms are still 2T.

His favorite songs to sing are Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the Alphabet song.  He generally prefers to sing by himself and we have caught him singing Twinkle Twinkle to himself a few times while trying to fall asleep.

He eats a variety of foods though his preferences change weekly.  He eats lots of fruits/vegetables each day he just changes which ones he wants each week.  Okra, green beans bananas and peaches are his current favorites.  We recently gave him steak for the first time and it was a big hit!  But his favorite meal each week is probably a toss up between family Food Truck Tuesday picnics and Wednesday Waffle House with MeMaw.

He loves going to school each day and will talk on the way about who he is going to play with that day.  We even had a recent crying episode where he refused to leave when mom came to get him!

His vocabulary is great, he has been working on numbers 1-20, colors and shapes at school recently and he seems to have mastered most of them.  He is working on his letters, days of the week and months.

That's Carter is a nutshell!

Olympic Spirit

Carter had a blast this week watching all sort of Olympic games.  His favorites to imitate are swimming, diving, gymnastics and trampoline!  He perfected his moves so much that be the end of the week he declared himself winner of the Olympics!  It was a close race with Lion and Elmo but our little superstar pulled it out!

And boy was he excited!!!

He made sure to perfect his victory smile...

He even found some fans in the stands who gave him some extra flags to add to his collection.

We're very proud of our little Olympian!