Crew at 9 Months

Lay still? You must be joking!

How is this even possible?? It seems like yesterday that Crew was just born and now he's 9 months old! He's still not walking, but he's one heck of a crawler and perhaps getting closer to walking soon? Cruises around things and has even let go and stood on his own for a few seconds a couple times. Still going through major separation anxiety and testing different voice volumes (read: shrieks and screams!). He has such an attitude and seems to get frustrated so easily, always throwing himself with arched back in displeasure! Loves wrestling (go figure) with Danny. Like I reprimand Danny for being too rough and body slamming his baby brother and Crew just goes back for more giggling all the way. What are we to do? This past month he's taken a big leap in terms of food experimentation - feeding himself all kinds of finger foods. His favorites are probably cheerios, sweet potatoes and pears. So afraid of writing this for fear I'll jinx myself, but he's been on a good nap stretch recently - goes down easily, and on his own, and sleeps for 1.5-2 hours in both the morning and afternoon. Still sleeping through the night, which is great, but wakes up early like between 5 and 6am. Hoping he starts sleeping a little later as he gets older. Says "mamamamama" and "dada" and I think he knows what he's talking about. Let's see what else... eats sand at the beach like it's his job and HATES being taken out of the bathtub, diaper changes and getting dressed. Dealing with one of his tantrums the other day, I was recalling stories of me as a baby - holding my breath until I passed out in a fit of defiance and frustration. So I asked my mom about my other behaviors as a baby and it seems that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Crew acts just like me at his age, that is to say super intelligent and nearly perfect ;) Loves clapping especially to music or TV shows like Mickey Mouse and Bubble Guppies. His newest trick is to sit in your lap and lunge himself backwards initiating a backflip and then clap for himself. What a maniac...

San Fran Trip: Part 2

Saturday Jimmy and Dan wanted to play disc golf so we ventured out to this beautiful course right around a lake for a nice walk and a few holes and then it was time for everyone to rest up for the wedding. Such a beautiful ceremony, though I wish Danny wouldn't have freaked out half way down the aisle with Connor and run backwards to me. The venue was great as was the food, drinks, music and company. Jimmy delivered a great best man speech. The kids held up pretty well. Two thumbs up! So happy for Kevin and Stef!

Sunday we packed up and headed back down to the city to hit up the San Francisco Zoo. It was Danny's first zoo experience and he was beside himself. Loved seeing all the animals, but maybe equally exciting was helping navigate with the zoo map. His favorite he says was the giraffes!

Excited for the zoo!

Danny meets a giraffe

Sunday afternoon Kevin and Stef hosted a BBQ for everyone at a beautiful campground with Pacific Ocean views. Such an awesome idea to round out a great weekend! After staying a little too long by the campfire it was time to get to our hotel near the airport. We had another really early wake-up call, but we made it to the airport and had another easy cross-country flight with both kids sleeping almost all the way. It took about a week and 10 loads of laundry, but we're finally back into swing of things and have so many great memories from our first big trip as a family.

Finally homebound

San Fran Trip: Part 1

At the end of June we headed to the San Fran area for Kevin and Stef's wedding and I have to say it was an extremely smooth and productive trip for our little family of 4! Here's how it went...

Wednesday, June 24th my mom arrived at our house at 3:30am to take us to the airport. She had worked until midnight that night - bless her for helping us out! Both kids were surprisingly okay with the early wake-up and we made it to Charlotte no problem for our connecting flight to San Fran. Not surprisingly, Danny loved all the airport transports, planes, shuttles, moving sidewalks, etc. Danny and Crew were so tired that they both slept the majority of our 4.5 hour flight. Jimmy and I watched one and half movies. It was strangely relaxing. When we arrived it was about 11am California time (2pm eastern time). We got the shuttle to pick up our rental car and then we were off!

5am

Mining for M&Ms in the trail mix

To make the most out of our day, we decided to drive south to Big Basin National Park to see some redwoods. Not too far mile-wise, it was, however, pretty hard to get to with super windy roads most of the way. Danny started looking a little pale and was kind of whiny, but we eventually made it and it was SO WORTH IT!

Inside a giant redwood

On our way out of the park and up to Kevin and Stef's place for the night, the windy roads finally got to poor Danny and he barfed all over himself and the rented carseat. It was the first time he's ever gotten sick like that and it was so sad. He didn't know what was going on - just kept saying, "I want to go to Uncle Kevin's house, I want to go to Uncle Kevin's house." We got cleaned up when we got to Kevin and Stef's and managed to stay awake until about 8pm before calling it a night.

Post barf - stripped to his undies

Making himself at home on Kevin and Stef's bed

Thursday we managed to make it to Golden Gate Park in the city where me and the boys met Shiva at a park and Jimmy and Kevin played disc golf. And then we swapped the kids and I went out to lunch with Shiva at great restaurant called Burma Superstar. Next we met Dan, Marisol, Kelly and Connor at this beautiful overlook spot, had an early dinner in Sausalito and then headed up to Fairfax where we were staying for the wedding weekend.

The humble abode

Friday we did Muir Woods and saw some more incredible redwoods and then met Martha and Ron for lunch at a cute place across the street from our motel. Friday evening was the rehearsal and a wonderful rehearsal dinner where thankfully we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. A bunch of people were going out afterwards and Martha and Ron offered to watch the kiddos, so Jimmy and I got to go too. I played flip cup for the first time in I don't know how many years.

Hunting imaginary animals

Pre-rehearsal 

Martha and Ron entertaining the kiddos

Deep conversations

Flip cup - get it, bride!

Stef + Jess