8 then 9 Months - In a Flash!

On June 28 Andreas turned 8 months, and then seemingly in an instant, it was July 28 and he was 9 months! This will be a good experiment to see if he has grown significantly within a months time. He is becoming a lot more mobile -- in the past few months he is crawling every where (although still mostly an army crawl) and now he is pulling himself up on everything. In fact yesterday I went in to get him from his crib and he had pulled himself up on the side and was standing there staring at me. I guess it is time to drop the crib down. He is growing up so fast, and we are enjoying every phase (so far).

At 8 Months:






At 9 Months:



Also, he got all 4 top teeth in over the past few months, at the same time! And, just to keep things interesting, 2 days ago Saul noticed that he has another bottom tooth coming in -- to the right of his bottom teeth. One of his new favorite things is when Daddy eats a peach or plum, he gets really excited because he likes to chew on them. I think it is the cooling effect on his teeth and gums that he likes the most, because he makes faces through the whole thing from the sweetness.

Andreas Turns 7 Months

Andreas turned seven months, and everything is going great. No more issues from his surgery, his head is rounding out just fine, and he is sleeping completely through the night. Life doesn't get much better! He is always such a happy little guy, and sometimes Saul and I forget how spoiled we are. He is still rolling around a lot and he is almost up to a crawl. He is kind of pushing off, but he hasn't fully worked it out yet. Sadly, the back scoot has been discontinued since the surgery for some reason, but he still manages to get around. Also, something we found out on the Colorado trip is that if he gets whiny, one of the tricks is to sing to him (and it doesn't matter how bad the singing is -- we know this from experience). He quiets down and smiles at you, but as soon as you stop, he'll whine again. He's a funny guy.
In these pictures Saul had given him what we call the "Jimmy Cagney hairdo". I think Saul likes it because he used to do his hair this way (way back when he still had some), but I don't like it.
Here we were trying out the backpack before our trip:
Andreas didn't mind keeping the hat on (which is unusual for a baby) but the sunglasses wouldn't fit around his spherical head and they would not stay on properly, so we have to save those for the next baby.
Note the drenched shirt. This is a common sight these days with him so anxious to get anything and everything into his mouth and still trying to figure out the spit swallowing trick. Although he did recently discover that he can buzz his lips, so he is able to send his spit further (this is not a good thing).

Colorado 2010 - Day 3 - The Hike

We got a fancy baby backpack in preparation for our trips this summer, so we were excited to try it out on this trip. We decided to go to Alberta Falls first (in RMNP).


Alberta Falls:
This was Bear Lake. We had to hike uphill in the snow to get there from Alberta Falls. It was a bit death-defying, but we made it! At one point I stepped in snow that was knee-deep and fell a bit, but that was really about as bad as it got. Saul was pretty steady, but had a few slips here and there that jostled the baby, but luckily we all made it through without injury. You can see the snow on the trail from this first picture. It was like that pretty much the whole way.

The lake was still completely frozen over.You'll notice that at this point the coats had come off. One of the rangers told us we would need coats once we were out there, but we didn't. It was cool, but once you started hiking, it was the perfect temperature. We kept the baby warm though with a blanket and warm clothes.

After the hikes, we walked around Estes Park, and then headed back to Loveland for an early dinner (we were pretty starved by then).

Colorado 2010 - Day 2 - Rocky Mtn Ntl Park

After Greeley, we decided to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park. On the way, right on the side of the road we saw about 5 Big Horn Sheep. We rolled down the window and took a picture. There is nothing like being up close and personal!

Once we got into the park, we decided to take the long drive that is very scenic. Parts of it had just opened up for the season since it was Memorial Day weekend. On the way we saw these elk in the "Sheep Lakes" meadow.







On parts of the road the snow was piled up about 12 feet high. They only allowed traffic in one direction, and there was a long string of cars, but it was a lot of beautiful scenery.



Needless to say, with all of the twisting and turning roads, Andreas got a little grumpy. We thought he might have been just a bit sleepy, but he woke up, whined for about 3 minutes, and then puked. So he had a bout with car sickness, but seemed to be ok after that. This picture was during the whining phase. He was not a happy camper.



The last stop on the road was at the continental divide.Then on the way out we saw more elk. There were a few people pulled over to look at these ones because they were so close. Saul mentioned something about how stupid people were to run up to these big elk. I told him to get out and get some pictures, and he got so excited he probably got as close as those other folks had been before. This picture doesn't exactly show it, but we were very very close.

Then in Estes Park on the way home, we saw more elk by the side of the road.It was a lot of time in the car with many stops, but it was a beautiful day and a beautiful drive that we all really enjoyed.