Hanging in My Crib

Josiah woke up happy from a nap this morning, so I took the opportunity to snap some shots.

We often find him playing with his mobile animals, and sometimes he's taken Mr. Giraffe down.

He's been so sweet lately! Today he waved back to me in the mirror. He's also started smiling at strangers and then doing the cuddling-close-to-momma thing when they talk to him. Be still my heart!

Visit With Joyce and Hope

Jonathan's Aunt Joyce came up for the day to take cousin Hope to a doctor's appointment, so we got to have lunch with them.

Stealin' some sugar while Josiah was focused on his cheese.

We also got to go to a summer music program at the local library this morning. It was fun, a little chaotic, but fun. Josiah liked looking at all the kids and hearing the music. They passed out instruments, and he rocked out with an egg shaker. Then we finished off the day with dinner with a friend from Bible study. We like to keep busy while Daddy's on call!

Sippie Cup

I seem to be running low on new things to blog about, but here is Josiah's renewed attempt at a sippie cup. I had been doing it for him, but I thought I'd let him try on his own for a while. He did best with this cup (handles and no sucking nozzle thing).

In other eating news, Josiah is really enjoying his finger foods. Here are a few he's tried and enjoyed: bananas, carrots, peas, corn, apples, blueberries, strawberries, black beans, sweet potatoes, green beans, yellow squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, avocado, mango (not a fan) and cheese (mozzarella preferred over cheddar).
For the things you may be thinking are too hard for him to eat (carrots, potatoes, apples) I've steamed or microwaved them in chunk form, so they are still soft enough to eat and solid enough to pick up. Do you think any potential future children will get this much effort? Or will they just survive on Cheerios and chicken nuggets?

Neighbors

I haven't take lots of pictures recently, but here are some from a while ago that I hadn't posted yet. Josiah is with our neighbor and her daughter. He's modeling a pair of Croc knock-offs that they gave him. God's been gracious to give us kind neighbors here too!

9 Month Stats

Josiah had his 9-month check-up this afternoon. Here are the stats:

20 lbs. (75%)
29 inches (75%)
18 inch head circumference (50%)

He's definitely slimming down since he started moving so much!

Off He Goes!

The preciousness never stops. And neither does Josiah...

He discovered the joy of rolling his cars around, as opposed to flipping them over and examining the wheels.

How cute is this child going to get? It just melts my heart!
(You also get a good shot of those top two teeth coming in.)

Off he goes! He's really fast, but has terrible steering. Our house doesn't have too much room to go before he bumps into something.

"OK, Mom, I'm ready to mow the lawn with Daddy now."

Kissy Face

9 Months

9-month fun facts:

• Josiah is currently obsessed with the ceiling fan in our room.
• Eats solids 3 times a day, nurses 4 times. LOVES Gerber/off-brand puffs and Cheerios and has gotten really good at putting them in his mouth. He's not as enthusiastic about other finger foods I've tried, even if he likes them pureed as baby food.
  

• Sleeps from 7ish-6:30ish at night. Generally takes two naps. He's started napping for over an hour more often, which is nice! He's gotten much better about laying down for to sleep, but sometimes he fights it.
  
• Just cut his top two front teeth!
  

• His shape sorter and tractor are his two favorite toys. He's started trying to put the shapes into the holes instead of just dumping everything out. He doesn't normally match the right shape to hole yet.
  
• Still enjoys his bath, but now he likes to crawl and stand in the tub, which is causing issues.
  

• Says "da da" for most things, including Daddy (but also Mama, the fan...). Occasionally we hear other consonants.
  
• Has started signing milk the entire time he's nursing. It's hilarious.

• Walking with our hands is his most favorite thing ever. One day he took off on his own with his push toy, but hasn't really done so since.
• Crawls from the living room to the kitchen to find me - so precious.
  

Laundry Helper

Small Group Cookout

On Saturday, our small group Bible study had a cookout. It was perfect weather, good food and lovely company.

Frank, Bekah, Christy, Leah and Chris

Our family and the fearless leaders, Mr. Steve and Daria.
Notice Josiah's new face. We think it's his attempt to make a kiss.

In case you were wondering, the small group is through the church we've joined down here: The Church at Brook Hills. We love it and are very blessed to hear wonderful teaching on Sundays and participate in encouraging camaraderie.

The boy was getting tired!

Ahhhhhh

Pincer Grasp

Josiah has completed, but I would not say mastered, his pincer grasp. He's feeding himself now, but very slowly.

Hindsight being 20/20, picking a Cheerio-colored rug to go under our dining table may not have been the best idea. Oh well!

Cute Little Pickpocket

I'm pretty sure the little bandit is memorizing my credit card numbers. How could I press charges with a smile like that?

Videos

Sorry for the video trouble. I had the YouTube videos set as private, so that might have been the problem. Let me know if you can see them now. I tried loading them through Google and they say they're having technical problems. Anybody have any tips?
Let me know if you can see them now.

Pulling Up

Crawling

Our First Video

We have been taking video of Josiah's growing up, but for reasons that you don't want me to go into detail about, we haven't been able to post them. We're working on it, so maybe we'll have a year in review sometime. These were taken from the new camera I mentioned earlier. We'll see how this works! My apologies for the sideways view. I didn't realize you can't rotate video images (or at least I don't know how to).

Here is Josiah "walking." More to come

Side-By-Side

God has blessed me with a wonderful group of women here in Birmingham. It's a group of medical wives called Side-by-Side that meet weekly to study God's Word and support each other in loving our medical hubbies and raising our children. Monday we had a farewell party for a few of the girls who are moving. It was a little chaotic with all the kids, but lots of fun. Josiah was the youngest (besides Liam, the little baby), so he just sat absorbing what all the big kids were doing and playing with all the "new" toys.

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Thinking Inside the Box

Parker Was Here!

We got a special treat on Friday - Parker came to visit! Long story, but he was in Atlanta, and I wasn't sure if we'd be able to see him, but he drove all the way over for just a few hours of visit. Jonathan was working, but Josiah got some good hang time with his Uncle Parker. And I enjoyed having a good conversation with my brother. We never get to hang out just the two of us anymore; it was really precious.

Josiah doing his favorite thing - walking.

"Oh Uncle Parker, I love you!"

The sad part came later when Josiah refused to take a nap, a repeat performance of "Standing Is More Fun Than Sleeping." Parker helped me stand firm, but we both really wanted to go get him! That was not fun, but we did have a good discussion about discipline...