8 Months

Ethan at 8 months you are:

















standing up in your crib (your crib mattress has since been lowered)

















trying to crawl

















and perfecting your army crawl.

















You also are becoming a rough and tumble little boy and have your first bruise.
























"Little Gorilla" is still your favorite book. You are getting better about sleeping through the night and going to bed a bit earlier, but you really don't want to nap. Sometimes you take two naps and sometimes you only take one. There are so many fun things to see and do! Your favorite song to be sung to at bed time is "Modern Major General". You are captivated when your Daddy sings it to you!

















You would rather stand than sit. You are quite proud of this new accomplishment! You go from lying on your back to standing in no time.
























You now have 4 teeth, you weigh 20 lbs, and are 29 inches long. You are in 12 month pj's however you still wear most of your 9 month clothes in addition to the 12 month outfits that you have. You also wear size 3 shoes.
























You love to crawl over to Mom and Dad when you play on the floor to make sure that we are still nearby and watching you. If we get out of your sight you cry. If we stand near you or walk by you you will reach out and grab our legs. We think it's super cute that you love to be near us. Sometimes I still wear you in the sling around the house (when you are tired and not trying to conquer the world) and when we go out you are either in the front pack or sitting in the shopping cart.
























You like getting out of the house and playing with other babies so we tend to go to playgroups at least twice a week. Sometimes we go to three or four playgroups in a week since you like it so much! (pictures are from the "hats and bows" themed playdate)
























You have learned to pull hair, and pull bows out of little girls hair but you also are sweet to the little girls too. The other day you offered your pacifier to a little girl your age. When you are around little boys your age you all tend to crawl over each other. Is this an early form of wrestling and roughhousing?
























Your hair is getting blonder and filling out and you now have curls at the back of your neck. Your hair is getting wavier too!

















Also, now that your hair is longer you wake up with some pretty funny bed head.















In short, you just keep growing and changing so fast! You are less interested in cuddling or laying down to drink a bottle and you want to crawl and explore everything in sight. You seem less like a baby and more like a toddler and we can't believe how much you have changed in 8 short months!
























We love you little boy and we feel blessed to be your parents!

Teddy Bear Picnic

If you go out in the woods today you're sure of a big surprise.
If you go out in the woods today you'd better go in disguise.


For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic.


Every teddy bear, that's been good is sure of a treat today
There's lots of wonderful things to eat
And wonderful games to play.


Beneath the trees, where nobody sees
They'll hide and seek as long as they please
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic.

White Rock Lake

An evening walk around nearby White Rock Lake.

























































We don't know the official name of this tree, but we call it the "squirrel stump tree". There is another tree that looks just like this in the park near our house. It really sparks my imagination and makes me think of fairy tales.





























I love how the sun photographed in this photo.















In this photo I love how you can see the city in the background behind the goose silhouette.















It is so beautiful and peaceful out here at sunset. I love it! Perfect end to a day.

Gonna need a bigger basket

(Que "Jaws" music)

3 hours in the checkout line was totally worth it!

Yesterday my mom and dad came into town so that my mom and I could go to a HUGE baby & kid consignment sale! While my mom and I were shopping my dad, Garrett, and Ethan had their own itinerary of guy things to do. ;-)

Here is a short video of sale that my mother and I went to:



It was HUGE. We spent 7.5 hours there!! 3 hours of that time was spent standing in line to check out. Yes, that's right, the checkout line was 3 hours long! However, it was worth wading through all the clothes, shoes, and toys because we made some fabulous finds and saved a ton of money. I was able to buy Ethan a lot of really cute brand name clothing that I would never have been able to buy otherwise.

After we got home, I looked up a lot of the clothing on the brand websites and discovered that if we had bought everything new in stores, we would have spent the following:

PJ's: $510
Toys: $157
Books: $35
Clothes: $873.25
Shoes: $89

(Pre-tax total: $1,664.25)

GRAND TOTAL if it had been bought new: $1,801.55

We spent $342 so this means we only paid 19% of what it would have cost new!

Wow! We felt a lot better about spending 3 hours in line after we totaled everything up. The great thing is that most of the used clothing looked new and some even still had tags on them. His winter coat was brand new with tags! This kid now has a complete wardrobe for fall and winter plus PJ's for the spring and a Halloween costume. Not only does he have a complete wardrobe, but he has enough clothes that I won't run out before we do laundry. Since we don't have a washing machine this made me very happy! Also, I want to give a special thanks to Robbie for giving us a free pass to get into the sale (saved us $20!) and for letting us borrow her folding cart so that we didn't have to carry these fabulous finds for 7.5 hours.

I love bargain hunting! It was a fun day!