9 Months

Before Dallin turns 10 months at the end of this week, I thought I'd give a 9 month update!  I uploaded these pictures weeks ago and then...well, life happened.

Dallin started crawling around 8 1/2 months, and we totally bribed encouraged him to start scooting forward with food.  And it worked!

Planking with his legs crossed

"Here's some food, Dallin!  Come on, eat it!"

I love how he is stretched from finger to toes!

Oh yeah, we also used stacked blocks to entice him.

Planking again

Dallin is such a happy kiddo and a very sweet, gentle little boy.  Around the time he turned 9 months he had a rough few weeks of being sick...first with a regular cold and then with RSV.  The poor little guy was doing breathing treatments through a nebullizer for a week, which he didn't love, but we got through it! 

He loves splashing in water, handling anything and everything, and puts everything in his mouth.  He has four teeth and two more coming in (well, they were coming in when he turned 9 months, they are definitely here now!) and he loves to eat.  He also recently decided that he no longer likes baby food, so, aside from a few things, he pretty much eats whatever Leah eats (which simplifies things a lot for me...especially since she tries to feed all her food to him anyway).

At his 9 month appointment he measured 29 inches and 23 pounds (which was a little lower than expected because he'd been sick and had a low appetite for a week and a half before his appointment).

We love, love, love our happy, healthy (uh, aside from the 3 weeks of sickness!) boy!

Picnicking

A few Saturdays ago, making dinner was an unappealing task, so we decided to get some Chipotle (our favorite - we split a burrito bowl at least 2 or 3 times a month) and enjoy the beautiful weather by having a picnic in our front yard.

I thought Leah would want to wander and play and come back for bites every once in awhile, but she sat right down, picked up a chip, and dug right into our burrito bowl.

It was messy and dirty (Dallin wanted SO badly to eat some sticks and leaves and was very put out every time we took them away from him) but we all completely enjoyed ourselves.

Leah in our front yard

Leah has recently become more interested in flowers - though it's only a short while before she destroys them, so we're working on "just looking". 

Dallin's latest smile - such a ham!

Dancing to the music from the ice cream truck that was driving through our neighborhood

Taking matters into his own hands

We've been sick all weekend.  And most of last week.  I think the most trying part about being sick is the crankiness that accompanies it...particularly if you're 1 and a half (not to name any names).  So today at lunch I was busy dealing with one child's crankiness while the other one got tired of waiting for me so he could eat.  I was so caught up with the first child's situation that it took me awhile to finally notice this:

And you know what my response was? 

Certainly not, "Oh no, we need to clean up that mess."

Nope, it was more like, "Oh good, he can feed himself and I can deal with [insert name of cranky child here]."

So I left him like that. 

I let him eat his entire lunch on his own while I dealt with my "other situation".

And he loved it.

Once again, please don't judge me as a mother.