Sunday, July 31, 2011

Eleven Months


It's time for another monthly update, and of course, I'm a couple weeks late with it!  Gavin is now eleven months old!  And with being a month older has come a few changes...as always!


Physically...
Gavin added another tooth - a bottom one - at the beginning of July.  That brought his tooth count up to seven!  Crawling has become something that his is very good at.  He is fast...and he is sneaky.  Someone has to be watching him at all times or he's bound to disappear.  We've had to start closing all of the bedroom doors, gate off the laundry room, and use our dinning room chairs to keep him away from the cats' food and water bowls.  Gavin is also an expert at pulling himself up to a standing position which means he can now reach what used to be out of reach...ugh!  Once up on his two feet he can cruise a step or two, but is very wobbly.  Considering how fast he took to crawling, I don't think it will be long before he masters cruising...


On the menu...
Gavin has given up all forms of baby food.  Sometimes he will eat one of those Gerber Graduate meals, but he doesn't love them.  He prefers table food...and that table food better be the same thing everyone else has on his or her plate or there will be screaming.  See, when it comes to eating at the table Gavin has decided he is a big boy and is fighting to be treated as such!  His favorite food group is probably meat...right now it is breakfast sausage specifically, but chicken is also a favorite.  He's also a big fan of watermelon, peaches, pears, corn, peas, and carrots.  Oh, and cake...he really, really likes cake! 

He still drinks 12-16 ounces of formula a day.  Sometimes he has breast milk (if I remember to thaw it out) mixed in with his formula.  He's starting to protest the bottle - almost like he doesn't like the formula anymore - so we'll probably be introducing some whole milk soon.  He's drinking most of his fluids with meals now.  And, even better, he's becoming a sippy cup champion!  I can't wait to say good-bye to bottles and liners and nipples and wrings!


Bed time...
Gavin is still an excellent sleeper.  In fact, if you consider the fact that he has been sleeping past six a.m. he's an even better sleeper than he was last month!  He still takes to naps a day - a morning and afternoon - but he's becoming more and more resistant to the morning nap and that morning nap is getting shorter and shorter.  I'm guessing with in the next month or two he will completely quit taking that nap.  I'm not to worried about this as he sleeps for about two hours every afternoon and sleeps a good eleven hours every night.  He still insists on falling asleep using a pacifier, but he usually spits it out shortly after falling asleep and is fine after that. 


A growing personality...
Remember those temper tantrums that Gavin started throwing occasionally last month?  This month they went from occasional to a regular occurrence!  Gavin is opinionated, and when he isn't happy with something he is more than capable of letting everyone know!  Still though, despite the fits he is still generally calm and easy going. 

Since learning to crawl and gaining the confidence to crawl anywhere and everywhere, Gavin has been able to enter a whole new level of play.  Good-bye baby toys; hello big brother toys!  Cars and action figures are a favorite.  As are Logans toy guitars, Thomas trains, and plastic kitchen food and utensils.  There are a few toddler toys Gavin loves still like his Croc Blocks, piano, and Thomas telephone. 


So many changes in just a few weeks...It would be hard to believe if I hadn't watched it  happen right in front of me!  So here we are...Gavin is eleven months old.  In just a few short weeks we'll be celebrating his first birthday; the end of his first year with us and the beginning of his second! 

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Museums, aquariums, and boats...oh my!

While we were in Iowa visiting my parents they took us here:

We spent a good four hours at this museum and first stop was the aquarium.  First thing that caught my eye and scared the poop out of Logan was the octopus.  Upon siting this creature he refused to go anywhere near it...not even when Grandma asked to take his picture with the octopus!  Can't really blame the poor kid...I wasn't to crazy about it either!


Luckily Logan liked everything else he saw in the aquarium.  Though I would say the sea horses were his favorite.


My favorite was the large wall tank with sharks and sting rays...and this is also where I took one of my favorite shots of the day.



Hint:  I love this shot!
On the second floor of the aquarium there was a neat hands-on area.  Since the museum is the Mississippi River museum of course the interactive area had to do with rivers and how they work.  Pretty sure Logan and Gavin didn't learn a thing about rivers, but they had fun playing in the water.  And the adults...yeah, they did their fair share of playing too!







From here we went to the second building that was part of this museum.  Inside we got to check out some more river wildlife including turtles, ducks, and fish.






At this point we had been at the museum for a couple of hours and it was time for a lunch break.  After lunch we headed outside to check out the boats. 




There were two different boats we got to tour.  One of them is the boat in the picture above, but firt we started in a much smaller paddle boat.



Here's my second favorie shot from the day!
And here's a few pictures from the much larger boat:





There were some other fun things to do outside too.  Like drive boats...


...run around on railroad tracks...
Third favorite shot of the day!
...and play...on and around everything!



Fourth favorite shot of the day!


After hanging out outside we went back inside for the last part of the museum.  'Course I don't have many pictures from this area...I think I was all photographed out by then!  I do have these shots from the mirror room that turned out.


It was a big day out, and we left after four hours with two sleepy children and five exhausted adults (seriously - I think everyone but my dad (the driver) fell asleep for at least some part of the drive home)!  This just made it one more highlight of our summer vacation.