11 Months Old

July 15, 2017
Size 3 diapers
Size 9 month clothes
17 lbs.  11 oz. (8%)
28 inches (5 %)

Well our goofy little man is 11 months old.  What a month it has been.  He went on his first airplane, went to a different state, saw the ocean, went on 2 boats, got 2 more teeth.  It really was quite a busy month for this guy.  Tooth count is up to 4 and working on 5 and 6.  He loves table food and loves to feed himself.  He loves rice and pasta and just about any kinda of fruit.  He hates yogurt, eggs and ice cream (sometimes I wonder if he is my child).  We are transitioning him down to 3 bottles.  After we got back from Alaska we had to do a little bit of sleep training to get him out of his 4:00 am funk and really we just gave in whenever he woke up in Alaska.  After a few rough nights he is finally sleeping until at least 6:00 am before drinking his bottle.  If he wakes up before 7:00 he will typically go back to sleep for another hour or so.  Hopefully soon he will just consistently sleep until about 7:00 and we can just call it good, but really I might just need to come to the realization that he could be an early riser.  He is still taking 2 naps a day, some days they are long and other days they are really short, which makes the day seem long.  One good thing this month was that he has stopped throwing up.  He threw up once while we were in Alaska but has yet to throw up again.  He had what we hope will be his last ENT appointment last week.  They said everything looked and sounded good and that we should be able to get him off his medicine when he turns one.

He crawls so fast now and pulls himself up on everything.  He NEVER stops moving, which makes diaper changes super hard and most of the time they end up in tears because I have to hold him down with my foot to get the diaper all the way on him.  Right at the end of the month he figured out that he can climb the stairs, now we are working on going down, but baby gates and blockades have been put up (not such a big fan of having 3 sets of stairs right now).  He is in to EVERYTHING.  He will be playing in Brooklyn's room with her and I will come in 5 minutes later and he will have her entire toy box emptied and her floor just covered in toys.  He loves to play pat-a-cake and can do all the motions with you.  His favorite is roll it and roll it and toss it in the oven.  He still loves to throw balls.  If he has a small ball he can throw it quite far and he definitely prefers throwing with his right hand.  He has gotten really good at waving hello and goodbye and will wave at anyone and everyone while he is flashing them a huge cheesy grin.  He loves to stand on the bench at church holding onto the back and just smile and wave at everyone. He also started dancing.  When one of his toys plays a song he will start bobbing his head to the music and Brooklyn likes to have him do it on command, it is pretty cute. He is still a big Mamma's boy.  He seems like the happiest baby in the world as long as he is right with me, but the second I walk away or some one else grabs him then all hell breaks lose and he is screaming bloody murder.  Needless to say we don't get out on many dates.  He absolutely loves brushing his teeth and will have a fit if he can't brush his teeth while Brooklyn is brushing hers.  He loves to tease, especially Craig.He loves the remote, but only the real one.  We have tried giving him ones without batteries,  but he always knows its not the real one and he can always tell no matter whose house we are at.  If Brooklyn is actually watching TV then she has to hide the remote or McKay will throw a  big fit when he can't have it.  Brooklyn is still such a great helper and big sister.  She shares so well with McKay, which is good because he is to the point that he will cry if a toy gets taken away or Brooklyn has the toy he wants.  Luckily she realizes that he will lose interest quickly and she will let him play with whatever.  He really is a sweet boy and I just keep reminding myself that one day I will miss him being glued to my hip.  I can't believe he is almost 1 years old.

The weekend that McKay turned 11 months we spent in McCall.  The kids and I headed up Friday morning with my parents to a friends cabin on Lake Cascade and boated the whole day.  Brooklyn had a blast tubing and it felt so good to ski again, since I couldn't ski last summer because I was 8 months pregnant.  That evening we went to My Father's Place for dinner and then they dropped us of at our cabin where Craig met us after work.  The weekend was full of pretty normal stuff for us.  We went on a few walks, hiked up to Boulder Lake (McKay actually did pretty well, he fell asleep on the way back down), walked around Ponderosa State Park and had a picnic, ate at Pancake House and got ice cream at Ice Cream Alley, and did s'mores.  McKay wasn't feeling super great the whole weekend, but he was a trooper and did pretty well with all of our adventures.

When we got back from McCall they had done quite a bit of the framing on our house.  It was fun to be able to actually walk through the lower level and see the different rooms.

Alaskan Adventures Part 2

The next day we did a little more sight seeing around Anchorage.  We visited the temple, the mission home, and the institute where Stan and Diane spend a lot of their time.  We went to lunch at a really good pizza place.  That evening Diane cooked us yet another delicious dinner, this time it was some salmon that Stan had caught.  The next morning Craig, Brooklyn, Stan and Diane went to the zoo while I hung out with McKay during his morning nap.  For some reason McKay really liked the hotel that we always stayed at in Anchorage and always slept well.  After his nap we got all packed up again and headed off to Seward.  It's a little town just a few hours from Anchorage, right on the ocean.  It was the most beautiful drive to get there and the town was just adorable.  Once we checked into our hotel, which was right on the water, we headed to the Aquarium.  I had no idea that Sea Lions were so huge!  After the aquarium we grab some fish and chips for dinner and then back to the hotel for bathes and bedtime.

Saturday morning we woke up and got ready for our boat tour.  It was a 3 1/2 hour tour through Resurrection Bay and then out into the open ocean for a little while.  We saw glaciers, bald eagles, sea lions, whales, mountain goats, puffins, and also a friendly little sea otter that liked to swim outside our hotel.  McKay luckily took a little snooze on Craig's lap about halfway through.  It was a little chilly so we were all bundled up.  Brooklyn loved seeing all of the animals and pointing out a whale when she would spot it.  After the boat we headed back to the hotel for lunch and then while McKay and I napped, Brooklyn, Craig and Stan walked along the docks to look at all the boats.  After nap time we walked around downtown and then grabbed some dinner.  Saturday night was another not so awesome night with McKay.  I spent a good few hours with him asleep on me while I sat in a chair, he refused to sleep in his or our bed and with Brooklyn in the same room I wanted to make sure that she got some good sleep, so that meant I didn't get much.

Sunday morning we just kind of hung low, let McKay take his morning nap and then grabbed some lunch before driving back to Anchorage.  That night we just hung out at Stan and Diane's apartment and Brooklyn spent the night while Craig, McKay and I headed back to the hotel.  McKay again slept well and in the morning we packed up and headed back to the airport.  The kids again did pretty well on the flights.  McKay slept on Craig for awhile on the first flight, we figured out on the trip that he sleeps way better on Craig then he does on me for some reason.  Both kids got a little antsy on the flight from Seattle to Boise, but we made it back all in one piece.  It took a few days to get unpacked and get laundry done and feel like we were back to our "normal".  We had such a great time and are so glad that we went to Alaska.  It was so good to see Nana and Pops and to experience Alaska with them.  They helped make this trip one for the books.  It was definitely a once in a lifetime trip and we will always remember it (well maybe not McKay, but we will show him pictures).

After we got back we of course had to go check out the progress that had been made on our house.  Before we left they had poured the foundation and by the time we got back they had poured all of the other concrete like the driveway and patio and what not.  We are so excited to watch our house take shape.