Good Lord we have to lower the crib again!

So in a span of a month...Johnny has gone from the reverse booty scootch, pull to standing, crawling and now cruising.  When I turned the light on in his room this morning to get him up he was standing in his crib chewing on the railing.  He was fairly bent over so he wasn't posturing to make his escape, but I know darn well that's just a matter of time and I'm not taking any chances.  The crib is going to it's lowest level tonight.  The big challenge now is not letting him get into Holiday Cozy Critters.  Not only would he mess them up, he could choke on pieces, so we got to figure out a way to manage that.

Pictures and New Stuff

Sleepy baby John.

Pile on Mommy!

Johnny grinning whilst playing train track demolition.

Squeaky clean Johnny boy!

Holiday's 'castle'.

Johnny just might be a drummer...he's very good at it.

Little cuteness.

Holly dressed like Abby KaDabby.

Who's got a new walking toy?

Johnny does!  And he's thrilled with it.

Miss Holiday getting ready for bed.

Doggy and kitty are having a 'picnic'.

Holiday playing on her leap pad.

Vader is giving David a kiss. (Not really but it looks like it).

Johnny has gotten way better at pulling up to standing.  He's still working on the whole stability thing.  Johnny has also figured out how to crawl and has picked up speed on it.  He likes pulling out Holly's golf clubs and banging them on the floor.  He'll crawl into places he can't get out of just yet...like under a chair or into a toy box, that's frustrating for him.  It's been much more challenging to change him now since every time we lay him down on the changing table his first impulse is to roll to his left and sit up facing the mirror.  I try to distract him with a toy or anything he can hold long enough to change him.  Otherwise we have to deal with the crocodile death spiral pretty much every time.  Holly never did that so that's a difference between children.  Holly's progressing like usual.  She's interested in helping around the house, so we have her help with putting things away, or stir something in the kitchen and she helped folding clothes the other day.  It's rare for her to have potty accidents during the day now.  So we think she might be ready to do at least the nap portion without an accident.  We'll see...it might be too soon.

If you're happy and you know it STAND UP!

That's right folks...Johnny is able to stand up on his own now.  Hardly 100% stable, but it's the new fun thing to do.  That and some serious raspberry action.  He has also figured out that if he leans his head far back enough he can see stuff behind him, so he does it in his saucer all the time.  His favorite though is when he's standing up and you're holding his hands and he leans his head back so he can see your face.  We call that being a 'muppet'.  You'd get it if you were a Muppet Show fan, the Muppets made that move all the time.  Johnny just started using his new car seat this week since he weighed in at 21.8 pounds and the carrier car seat was only rated for 22 pounds.  We found one that can be rear-facing, we can turn him around when it's time.  Holiday is making more use of her imagination and is pretending to read and write.  David found some Dora the Explorer Valentine's Day cards that she can give to her friends at daycare.  We see it as a good opportunity to get her to practice spelling her name.  Holiday can print out her name in capital letters if someone directs her to do so.  She's also been enjoying playing with her Cozy Critter playhouse.  Usually the baby critters are all sleeping in the crib, taking a bath or been going on a picnic.

The Reverse Booty Scootch

Johnny's been up to all sorts of new tricks lately...like the reverse booty scootch.  Since he's so good at unassisted sitting he uses his upper body strength to push himself around, mostly backwards.  I had David drop the crib a level since he sits up in his crib now.  That does make me feel better about Johnny being a tummy sleeper.  From a tummy sleeping position, Johnny can snap to sitting almost instantly.  He's totally into baby exploring mode so he's bumping his head on everything, just like Holiday did.  It really does make a parent self conscious about any facial bruising babies sustain from this.  It's hard to accept that it's a part of growing up.  He hasn't been able to pull himself to standing yet, but I don't think that it's that far off.  When he starts doing that we'll need to drop the crib the rest of the way.  Johnny can do assisted walking holding on to our hands.  We bought a new car seat for him too.  We're waiting for him to grow out of the one he's using now, that'll be when he reaches 22 lbs.  Last time I checked, about 2 weeks ago, he was 20.8 lbs...so he's getting close.  Holiday is getting a little cabin fever with all this winter weather going on.  I was able to get outside with her on Sunday and filled the green bin, played some basketball, some badminton, Holiday cruised the greenhouse and played in the sandbox.  We just had to bundle up.  I think she's needs new boots, hers were really hard to get on.  As much as I wanted to deadhead the butterfly bush I refrained since it's been dipping pretty low at night, so I'll wait till it comes back up again.

Catching up on Pictures

Johnny loves the saucer

Downtown Seattle

Mommy and the kids

Jungle Gym Daddy

Time for a check up Vader

Such a good kitty

Now it's brushing time

I think the cowboy hat suits Johnny well.

  

Christmas at Grandma Claudia's house.

Oooooo...a Barbie.

Johnny's a pro at unwrapping.

Look at that wrapping paper pile Johnny's got going.

Checking out the goods.

Smiley Johnny.

"It's a porsey!"

I see smiley faces.

Holly's showing off her jams.

Happy baby boy.

Kitty in box...what could be better?

Snuggle time with Daddy.

I see your kitty in a box and raise you a blankie.

The Anderson Family in the New Year

I hope everyone had a good Christmas...I know we did and we all had really bad colds.  We did manage to have some fun while trying to get better.  Since the kids got it first they've been feeling better for a while, David and I are still fighting it off.  It was one of those 10 day kind of colds...nasty.  But the kids had a great Christmas.  Johnny is a natural at opening presents, ripping paper is the greatest.  Holly was a little sad that we packed away all the Christmas decorations, but is enjoying all her new toys.  The house is almost settled with all the new stuff, still in the process of upheaval.  David and I managed to go see The Hobbit so that was exciting for us to have a date day.  Johnny starting saying "DaDa" a couple weeks ago, now he's saying "MaMa" too.  When I'm getting him dressed in the mornings I'll put one sock on him then he positions his other foot so I can put the next sock on.  He can recognize the chain of events that happens there.  He gets excited when he sees his highchair get put up.  No allergies to date, the only food he hasn't liked was peas.  And he really tried to like it.  He gagged it up and was willing to take more.  It could be a consistency thing so we'll try peas again later.  Johnny hasn't crawled yet but he is using his upper body to slide around the floor, so he gets where he intends to go.  We'll need to employ the next level of babyproofing soon, make sure the baby gate to the kitchen is solid and drop the crib level again.  Once I'm done with this cold I'll go back to "getting in shape" routine again.  I'm also feeling that urge to get outside and do yardwork again, I did manage to clean out the greenhouse but there's a lot of stuff that needs pruning, trimming and weeding.  But I do feel that our house and yard is in better shape than it was a year ago, that's pretty good considering we had Johnny this year. Busy, busy.