Caleb: 8 and 9 months

According to the scale at the Omaha Children's museum fake hospital, Caleb weighed 17.91 lbs. At 8 months, Caleb was eating applesauce in the morning, a small amount of baby food (whatever is in our freezer) in the afternoon and a giant bowl of oatmeal mixed with applesauce at night. He nursed when he woke up in the morning, after both naps, and then again before bed. He figured out a sippy cup when I was at the office in Minneapolis when Tom put apple juice in it, but still can't figure out a straw. He was an unpredictable sleeper at 8 months and would sometimes sleep from 8-9 with only one feeding around 6, or he'd wake up 3-4 times. He loved just sitting up and playing with anything. Sometimes, though, he would get tired of sitting up and whine until you helped him lay back down and then he'd play like that for awhile. Still doesn't really roll over.

9 month stats from the doctor appointment on November 11:

Weight: 19 lbs exactly (38%)

Height: 27.5" (16%)

Head: 45.5 (60%)

At 9 months, Caleb still eats the same basic stuff. He has some mashed banana mixed with applesauce for breakfast, 4 ice cubes of food for lunch (again, whatever's in the freezer... we currently have butternut squash, carrots, and broccoli), and oatmeal mixed with applesauce at night. We give him table food, and he doesn't dislike anything, but whatever we put on his high chair table, he'll eat about three pieces, and then be done. So he has had 3 bites of black beans, salmon, turkey, ham, cheese, avocado etc. I was at a baby shower last weekend and he was sitting on my lap reaching for the food, so I gave him some guac on a chip. He went crazy and I couldn't shovel it in his mouth fast enough. He ate about half a cup of it and then had big, spicy burps the rest of the day. He still nurses after he wakes up in the morning and from both naps and then again before bed, but he is not really that interested. He eats for like 5-10 minutes each time, maybe. He forgot how to use a sippy cup and still can't use a straw. We got him a bottle-like sippy cup that he can sort of do, but he mostly just chews on it and laughs. He is now a consistent sleeper (hallelujah!) sleeping from 8-8 with one feeding between 5:30-6:30. He naps twice. The morning nap is somewhere between 1.5-3 hours and the afternoon nap is anywhere between 30 minutes and 1.5 hours. He is still the same happy guy. He doesn't sit up much anymore. He gets into crawling position and scoots himself backwards and then gets frustrated or just flails trying to move forward and gets frustrated. He is always losing socks and one is usually in his mouth like a puppy. He babbles a lot and says mama and dada but doesn't really mean us specifically. The only thing he's said appropriately is "quack quack quack" when we talk about what a duck says. Sometimes when I say "what does a duck say? quack quack quack" he'll respond "kackackackackack." Other times he just laughs at me. He still likes to cuddle (for which I'm grateful), but he is much more grabby and jumpy than he used to be. 

Celia Art: Catch-up

Again, falling a bit behind here, but finally getting around to clearing up the stack of art from the past bit. Here are Celia's from the past little bit. I included some of her writing. The letter to Annie Barrows (author of Ivy and Bean) was written at the beginning of the summer and the letter about Halloween was written on Halloween of course. Here's her narration to what's included here (backstory or other comments where applicable in parentheses by me):

This is a letter maker. The first computer is of colors. The color you press is the color that your letter is. The second computer is the shape. If you press two shapes at a time then you get a blended-shaped letter. Like the letter coming out of the printer. The third computer is of letters. Whatever you press is what the letter says. PS - there is also a space button.  (Someone needs to get this girl a Silhouette.) 

This is a picture I made of Jesus. I think I should send it to some missionaries. (The missionaries came over and played some game with us about the steps to Eternal life with Jesus. They used sticky notes for each one of the steps including the eternal life step. Celia couldn't help herself. After they left, she replaced that sticky note with this.)

This is a picture of an 8-year-old girl getting baptized. I think I'm going to keep this one.

This is a letter I made to my mom, my dad, and my sister, Sabrina. 

This is a letter I made to Annie Barrows, the writer of Ivy and Bean books.

 This is the back of the letter. The picture is on this side. The red-haired girl is Ivy and the black-haired girl is Bean.

This is Rapunzel when she has braids in her hair. I didn't really finish this one. (This was on the back of the next one... it's the "Before" I think.)

This is Rapunzel when she paints and builds some more things to her tower. She also adds doors. She is holding Pascal. (This is after her hair is cut and she's happy and she can apparently add doors to her tower.)

This is a picture of what I call the "Super Hero Pod." The girl is named Ella and the boy with the blue mask, his name is R.J. and the boy with the green mask's name is Catarine. 

This is about me. Can you read it? After Alaska comes a period. I didn't get to put that there.

This is a Hawaiian girl collecting coconuts. The rose thing is a coconut slide. The coconuts roll down. (This is a collage if you can't tell. She cut everything and came up with the idea and put it all together.)

This was one of my Jack-o-lantern ideas but I made a different one. It had one circle eye and one rectangle eye. I named it Boo Boo.

This is a list of all the candy I got in my bucket when I went Truck-or-treating. (Celia would not eat one single piece of candy once we got home before she wrote it down... she ate quite a bit at Taylor's before she was able to come home and inventory it all, however.)

This is a comic I made called "Denali." This is how I think Denali was made. (I love this one. After our trip to Denali National Park, Celia came up with this little wonder of the tectonic plates colliding to form the mountain.)

The first picture is of a mermaid. The second picture is of a princess living in Florida. The mermaid lives in Texas. 

Sabrina Art: Catch-up

Sabrina's art has really grown leaps and bounds this summer and I wish I had kept better track of when these were actually created, but alas. Here's from the last six months (in no particular order, as you can tell by all the Halloween pumpkins sprinkled throughout), as explained by her, of course (with comments by me in parentheses):

I don't remember, but I think it's me holding a wand but first a stick, a lollipop, and first an ice cream cone. That's all.

 That's a dinosaur with its arm almost all done coloring. That's all.

 That's me sitting on the couch.

That's Hello Kitty with her sister. They're riding. And I put two faces on each of them.

That's me sticking me tongue out with red clothes playing with a purple jump rope we have. I'll show you it. (She went and got it.)

That's you and Daddy marrying eachother.

That's me wearing a dress and a machine I made.

That's you and Nana. You have red hair dye. You're dressing up as princesses. Nana's beautiful, And I drew swirls. 

That's a pumpkin and I put lots of Halloween stickers and the pumpkin with two bows.

That's another pumpkin that is named "Boo" and it has two mouths and its toothbrush goes on him and he puts it on his nose.

That's Celia playing princess and me, Sabrina, in the high chair playing princess with her. (not sure how this shows "I can pray with my family...")

That's me with red hair dye in a crib with an ice skater on the bottom. And to draw her, I used Celia's colored pen.

That one is me with red hair dye all over and the other head I messed up because it was too high.

That's a pumpkin girl with a pumpkin head and three bows and its name is "Boo" and I'm gonna give it to Nana and Papa. That's all. (She started to write "this is" on the side, but ran out of room, so she had me title it on the bottom.)

That's the castle with Allyson and Billy and Balo and Clara at their museum with their bat decoration on the door and two pumpkins on the sides and we could go in. And it has a piano that makes a picture, but it's actually a TV screen that pretends to make a picture. (The children's museum in Omaha had a Halloween section that was all dark with black lights and had a haunted castle with a big TV screen framed picture that would move every once in awhile and make silly faces... hope that helps put her comments in context here...)

That's a robot and the thing in the sky is "lunder." Lightning I mean. It's lightning.